2008 Federal Elections
FSNA calls to action more than 160,000 seniors and like-minded organizations during the 2008 Federal Election.
See letters sent by FSNA National President, Dennis Jackson to party leaders. (PDF)
Click here to see FSNA’s key messages for all candidates. (PDF)
See the party leaders response to our letter and key issues:
Conservative Party’s response (not received)
Liberal Party’s response (PDF)
Le Bloc Québécois Party’s response (not received)
New Democratic Party’s response (PDF)
Green Party’s Response (PDF)
Click here to see Campaign promises and projected costs (September 25)
October 7th, 2008 at 6:39 am
I am strongly in favour of some form of proportional representation for Canada, urgently required in this country where approximately 7,500,000 votes are wasted in each election. Our majorities were actually elected by minorities in almost all elections since WWII.
The outdated First Past the Post system doesn’t work with five parties. We need more cooperation between parties. If Harper gets a majority this would be very tragic for Canada, especially for the federal Public Service. He is bound to reduce it unconscionably and drastically, and more people are likely to die from poisoned food, for example. Canadians tend to underestimate how much to the right of our normal, moderate conservatives, such as Joe Clark for example, this man with dictatories tendencies is. (I am a former member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.)
I was very pleased with the performance of Elizabeth May during the leaders’ TV debates and consider her the most intelligent of all our party leaders. I have nothing but utmost contempt for those who strove to keep her out and those who regretted that she was allowed to participate–among the latter were many uninformed and narrow-minded women!
I cannot vote strategically, because in my riding the Conservative, a young man with dubious credentials, is going to win. So I will vote for Elizabeth May’s Green Party and have the Green Party’s sign on my front lawn.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Well, we have a return of a Conservative government albeit not a majority which I think we need especially during times of economic turmoil because parities like the NDP who believe in taxing corporations right out of Canada thus loosing much needed jobs would also spend us into oblivion (just like Bob Rae and the NDP did to Ontario twenty years ago. I can’t believe the Liberals actually may consider electing him their new leader!). The Liberals would also spend us into a huge deficit and also kill more jobs by putting a carbon tax on fossil fuels. That policy really irks me as we live in a northern hemisphere country and do not have choice but to turn our furnaces on in the winter. Home heating fuels should be 100% exempt any carbon taxes and as well the GST should not apply either as heating our homes is essential and not a luxury. Anyway, the so called opposition parties do not believe in “cooperation” unless they are getting their way on everything; that’s the reason we had an election in the first place, they were always threatening to bring down the government and the only reason they criticized Mr. Harper was because he beat them to the punch.
As for the Liberals, if they are really serious about ever returning to be the governing party then they need to start listening to and implementing the policies and beliefs of their younger members. The new Liberal leader should be a young (between 35 and 45) member of the party who can relate to the young people of Canada from coast to coast. To win in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Liberals need to appoint a young liberal as their leader’s western lieutenant and make it his/her job to listen to the people of the west and make sure their voice is heard at the highest levels of the Liberal party. Someone like Justin Trudeau would be good at a job like that!!
Anyway, I was Liberal then a Progressive Conservative and never thought I would vote for Stephen Harper, however he showed true leadership the last couple of years keeping a minority government going longer than any in history all the while fighting with Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and Stephan Dion to get the policies through that the Canadian public made clear they wanted.
Way to go Mr. Harper. Congratulations!! Next time a majority for sure!