On the defining moment for the Harper Conservatives, the looming Ministry of Happiness, F-35s, Flaherty's math, and Veteran Affairs cuts

On billionaires, Harper Conservatives vs Texas conservatives, pension protection, voter turnout rates and other issues

On Afghani government torture, Tory motivational strategies and relation to human rights

Bigger cuts to services mean bigger bonuses?

Globe & Mail reports: "Axe-wielding executives in the public service stand to earn big bonuses based on how much they cut in the run-up to the 2012 federal budget." How does this make you feel?
Does this mean that if a bureaucrat fires 1000 people instead of 100, he gets a bigger bonus? It does seem so.
Does this mean that if an over-zealous staffer proposes to, for example, relax environmental controls, his office will only benefit from it? It does seem so.
Does this mean that the Harper Conservatives couldn't care much less for what we all think? Easy question...

On Tories giving back to education, their golden business cards, and other news

For other videos, please visit youtube.com/artemNDP

Notes for the Election Report to be made at the Edmonton-Leduc NDP AGM

Election result – 11,488 and 19.3%. Best for the party in the riding’s history. Best for non-Tories since 2004.

NDP 1^st in 4 polls (1 in Brander Gardens, 1 in Royal Gardens, 1 in Sweet Grass, 1 in Blue Quill Estates).

We are second in all but a handful of the rest of the polls.

We have a very good result in several other polls in Royal Gardens, Riverbend, Hodgson, Blue Quill, Greenfield, Sweet Grass, Duggan, Steinhauer.

We have significantly improved our standing in a number of polls in Aspen Gardens, Brander Gardens, Brookside, Rhatigan Ridge, Buylea Heights, Henderson, Leger, Haddow, Terwilleger, Ogilvie, Skyrattler, Ermeniskin, practically all of Leduc and all of Devon.

Importantly, while we jumped almost 8% and almost doubled our vote count, the result for James Rajotte went up by less than half a percent point. Given the number of new areas and residents since 2008, this cannot be good news for the local Tories.

Discouraging news for everyone in this election is not only the fact that the Tory vote still went up, but also that the turnout increased by just 3%. Still, this is the highest number of people that voted ever in Edmonton-Leduc.

Once again, heartfelt thank you to everyone that participated in the campaign. Our canvassers and volunteers in the next campaign will meet more former NDP voters than ever before. We are definitely moving forward. We still have a long way to go, but if we don’t stop now and wait until the next election, we’ll get a lot done. Thank you.