And the "Urbanites, in Mr. Adams's portrayal, are younger, see themselves as global citizens ..." theory is full of holes too as much of the LP ridings are heavily ethnic immigrant populated and those populous' are anything but "...connected to other countries, experience "greater comfort with change and complexity," love "seizing on new technologies," and are big on diversity...". they are deeply tribal, poorly educated, ghettoized and often barely integrated into canadian society.
The reason why many of the Vancouver urban ridings went Tory is because many in the Asian immigrant populations there are indeed "...connected to other countries, experience "greater comfort with change and complexity," love "seizing on new technologies," and are big on diversity..." they are often well-educated eager and proud Canadians.
The segment of the urban ridings that is as Mr. Adam's describes do indeed vote heavily liberal as it seems all urban elites/elitists do in western society. IOW this is hardly a Canadian phenomenon.
Flanagan is hardly a campaign genius.
He, Finley and Plett turned a win into a loss and a majority into a minority.
Simple math is that the CPC needs to win almost 70% of seats outside of 905/416/514/604 to win a majority.
Lemon: So what? How metropolitan are we?
Mark
Ottawa
While we're doing some mythbusting, how about a reality check too?
Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are world class cities.
[External Link]
[The per capita numbers vs. big American cities like New York are interesting in light of recent adjustments to the fibre of our fabric.]
The rest of these "urban areas" are not.
Let's also be honest about the ubiquitous undertone on this blog of the "invading hordes". They look and act different than they "should" and supposedly vote Liberal automatically and a lot of people somehow feel that's a cheat on the system.
Well, it's not, at least not in any rational sense. These "others" come here to contribute and make money. Lots of it. They move to the affluent suburbs and buy big houses and far too many cars for the driveway. As one redneck I had the fortune of meeting remarked: "I grew up in Richmond Hill and it's all Chinese now and Markham's full of Indians too."
They buy in, and on a large scale. Don't kid yourself that the massive tech industry in Ontario would be anything without immigrants. I was a minority in my university program and the honour role list went gave any MC a dose of flop sweat.
The kicker: on a per capita basis, Toronto and Montreal are doing significantly better from a violent crime perspective, 26th and 39th respectively, with the top of the list sounding a lot like the role call of "urban areas" in this article.
It spreads too, as some 905ers are loath to admit. York Region is amongst the safest places to live in the country. Most of the top 5 safest are communities north of the city where people are buying decent land(another habit of immigrants as Simcha Kravitz would explain).
Vancouver stands out in crime, but I suppose they have been doing drugs and voting Tory ;)
"Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver are world class cities."
Toronto? You must have been drinking too much of Mel Lastman's and David Miller's Kool Aid. As for Montreal, world class as long as the infrastructure doesn't collapse - literally. BTW - I travel to Montreal about a half dozen times per year.
As for violent crime, it's a well established fact that it trends upward as one moves west and it's been that way for decades.
"The province with the highest crime rates is Saskatchewan with 14,320 per 100,000. Saskatoon is the city with the highest violent crime rate of major cities overtaking its provincial counterpart Regina."( [External Link]). I suppose it would be impolite to suggest that Sask's crime rate might have something to do with aboriginals.
"Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, and Saguenay have the lowest crime rates of any city and are all located in Quebec." ( [External Link]). I guess they aren't world class yet.
"While Toronto is facing a 20-year high murder rate and other Canadian cities such as Winnipeg and Montreal are plagued by homicides and gun violence, Quebec City is poised to turn the calendar on a murder-free year."
"It has already actually been more than a year since the last homicide was reported on Oct. 31, 2006." [External Link]
Apparently those rubes in the sticks just don't get it. BTW - it's nice seeing Vancouver edging ahead of Guadalajara in GDP.
Following on John's points, it would also be impolite to mention that the vast majority of Greater Vancouver's murder vics are ethnic, as well as the alleged perps. Liberals all?
[External Link]
[External Link]
And this one, an obvious case of 'being in the Wong place at the wrong time'...
[External Link]
"These "others" come here to contribute and make money. Lots of it. They move to the affluent suburbs and buy big houses and far too many cars for the driveway."
How does that benefit Johnny Canuck? It benefits the immigrants. It benefits the big corporations selling houses, cars and lending money. They in turn hire more immigrants who work for much less than Johnny Canuck, drive down his wages; drive up the cost of buying a home; lower his birthrates; advocate for more mass migration of their own; repress his freedoms of speech and association; clog his hospitals and burden his medical insurance (diabetes in Toronto is exploding because of much higher susceptibility in the immigrant community / TB is almost totally found in the immigrant community); destroy his environment and colonise his cities.
"As one redneck I had the fortune of meeting remarked: "I grew up in Richmond Hill and it's all Chinese now and Markham's full of Indians too."
Race replacement pure and simple. Why are homogeneous yellow or brown cities good, but homogeneous white cities bad?
"The kicker: on a per capita basis, Toronto and Montreal are doing significantly better from a violent crime perspective, 26th and 39th respectively, with the top of the list sounding a lot like the role call of "urban areas" in this article."
What a joke! White liberals are such hypocrites. Mouth a few words of racial rectitude and their own the side of the angels. Anybody with half a brain knows why North Central Regina has the highest crime rate in Canada.