Provincial elections: Are you ready?

[ArcsVibe]

Are you ready for another election?? March 26th election day here in the province of Quebec.I don't want to know who you are voting for but I am just curious to know if you will vote at all? I for one am voting again this time around, I just hope the campaign will not be a dirty one...Your thoughts?Backbiting persists even as leaders pledge to wage civil campaigns HUBERT BAUCH, KEVIN DOUGHERTY and PHILIP AUTHIER of TheThe GazetteThursday, February 22, 2007"Quebec's future is at stake," Premier Jean Charest declared of the election he called yesterday for March 26."This election will be determinant," he said shortly after a brief meeting with Lieutenant-Governor Lise Thibault to obtain formal leave to dissolve the National Assembly."It is a choice between progress and turning back."Charest said turning back would be the election of a Parti Quebecois government whose priority would be to hold another referendum on separating Quebec from Canada: "The choice is between unity and separation."PQ leader Andre Boisclair mocked Charest's call for unity, charging it was the Liberals who divided Quebecers with their failure to live up to their promises for the 2003 election that brought them to government, notably the pledge for $1 billion a year in tax cuts that never came through. "We're still waiting for these tax cuts," he said."After four years of dividing us, the Liberal Party, like a pyromaniac fireman, now proposes to unite us."Boisclair said he does not intend to back away from his hardline tone toward Charest.Moments after Charest kicked off his campaign, saying he's tired of Boisclair calling him a liar, the PQ leader said he still plans to demand answers from Charest about the Liberal record in office."It won't be an aggressive campaign," Boisclair said when asked about Charest's comment that he wants to improve the tone of the debate. "I will be firm."Starting his first campaign as leader, Boisclair said he's ready to do battle and has no plans to change his style."I'm anxious to engage the people," he said. "I'm a campaign guy, it's when I am at my best. I think Quebecers expect frankness, and this is what I will give them."Observers consider Charest to be the better campaigner.Mario Dumont, leader of the Action democratique du Quebec, said he did not intend to participate in a slagging match with his opponents. Rather than calling Charest a liar, Dumont said, he would ask: "When Jean Charest gives his word, is it solid?"And Dumont won't talk about Boisclair's past cocaine use."We will talk about the problems of the people," he said.The three major party leaders headed out on the trail for what will be a 33-day campaign.The premier travelled to his hometown, Sherbrooke, for his first campaign rally, while Boisclair headed for his home riding, Pointe aux Trembles, on the eastern tip of Montreal. Dumont began with campaign stops in the Quebec City region before heading to Montreal.In a bad sign for Charest's campaign, the crowd for his evening rally, where the premier was accompanied by five Eastern Townships candidates, was disappointing. There were roughly 250 people in a hall that holds 700, and barely half what party organizers said they expected.It was held in the same community concert hall that was packed to the rafters when Charest was there on March 26, 1998, to announce his leap to the Liberal Party and provincial politics from federal politics and the Progressive Conservative Party he had led for five years.Charest played down the glaringly low turnout afterward, saying that since the campaign began yesterday, his organizers were able to start calling people only that afternoon.A total of 125 seats are at stake in what is expected to be a close and hard-fought campaign. At the time of dissolution, the Liberals held 72 seats, the PQ 45 and the ADQ five. There was one independent and two vacant seats.The Liberals were slightly ahead in the pre-campaign polls, but the Charest government still suffers from a high dissatisfaction rating and its popularity hit record lows during its mandate.Recent stronger showings in the polls by the ADQ, especially in the Quebec City region, have raised the possibility of the first minority government in Quebec in more than a century.The parties already had posters up yesterday morning - before the vote was formally announced.The starting-line news conferences offered a taste of what's to come. Charest touted the state of Quebec's economic health and his government's achievements in office, saying the province's credit rating is at its highest in three decades and the welfare rolls have been cut.He said health service has improved, educational services have been boosted and 30,000 new daycare spaces created. He also cited the federal government's recognition of Quebec as a nation, Ottawa's acceptance of asymmetrical federalism and Quebec representation in Canada's UNESCO delegation."We have been a government of rigour and justice," Charest said, adding a second-term Liberal government will do more of the same. "Our priorities are Quebecers' priorities."Boisclair maintained that besides failing to deliver on previous campaign promises, the Charest Liberals have failed to press Quebec's constitutional demands for greater autonomy."Quebec's demands have melted like snow in the sun," he said.Charest and Boisclair said they plan to run serious, issue-based campaigns, but the nasty backbiting that preceded the official campaign start persisted yesterday with Boisclair again calling Charest a liar for his broken promises and Charest calling Boisclair immature, shallow and lacking in judgment.In what is also expected to be a standard feature of the campaign, Charest's tour bus was greeted in Sherbrooke by a group of students protesting against the Liberal plan to lift the 13-year-old freeze on Quebec university tuition.Today, Charest will campaign in the hotly contested Quebec City area.© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007

[Raven]

I'm voting. At least it will be a short campaign so they don't have time to BS too much or spend too much money for nothing.

[Thewhite]

If it was just for me, I'd do a two weeks campain! I know since months to whom I give my vote!!

[CAN-AWD-VIBE]

Just dont vote for anyone who wants to leave us you guys. I like my french friends in Canada.

[POLO]

Now every partie will start to talk like the savior.After they been elected,they become .............

[ArcsVibe]

Quote, originally posted by Thewhite »If it was just for me, I'd do a two weeks campain! I know since months to whom I give my vote!!Me too! Not much to pick from though lol