harper is a bright fellow but he has real problems seeing past his ideology.  still it would pay dividends not to underestimate him at least on the domestic front.

TopGun, if you only care about Canada's reputation among your own domestic left-wing factions then you are probably correct.

That, however, does not make you right (excuse the pun - pun intended). If you are worried about what the rest of the world thinks then consider that there are many of us who believe that your Prime Minister Harper is rebuilding Canada's reputation - a reputation damaged by your so-called liberals.

Cheers.

TopGun,  I live in Toronto and go to York university, one of the most liberal in Canada (although I will soon be switching to pharmacology at U of T). Basically, I'm in liberal and NDP central. And yet I voted for Harper and the Conservatives in the last election. Why? Because Martin's liberals gave right about 2 shits about what happens in the outside world as long as they got good ratings from the mostly liberal Canadian public, not to mention feeling that they can spend my tax money as they damn please without justifying themselves.
Meanwhile, the NDP spends twice as much time the liberals and conservatives as they do developing their own solutions to problems. Dont get me wrong, I agree with the NDP on many issues, but I'm so friggin tired of listening to Layton bitch at everyone but his own MP's for every little thing.
The one hope I had for the liberal party  was Michael Ignatieff who showed the sense of actually finding out about what Saddam's Iraq was like and understood just how dangerous he was. But even he caved in the face of the liberal leadership race and hopped onto the bash-Israel wagon during the war with Hizballah. And now the liberals chose themselves some ultra-green Kyoto-pushing hippie instead of Ignatieff, who even with all his faults would have been much better.
Finally we get to the conservatives. I have some major with them, for example I support gay marriage (none of my business what others do in the bedroom, if they wanna get married and find a church that'll do it, why not?) as well as legalizing prostitution (would cut down on abuse of by pimps and violent customers as well as making the a hefty amount through taxes). Harper is of course dead against these things but I voted for him and will vote for him again, why? Because he is the only candidate that a slimy double talker or a living in a fantasy world hippie.