mcsweep, I'm replying to your message but this response applies to all messages in the thread. Yup, I'm as jaded and cynical as the next Canadian. Municipally, I've got a buffoon named Rob Ford as mayor of my city. Good God! I look with envy at Naheed Nenshi of Calgary, Gregor Robertson of Vancouver and Jim Watson of Ottawa; all three mayors have a vision for their own city and the ability to articulate it beyond a mere populist slogan. Ford!!! Go figure. Provincially, I've got (or, I should say, had) Dalton McGuinty, a man I voted for three times and who repaid me with three major and very costly scandals. Federally, I've got Steven Harper as PM, as manipulative and secretive a leader as is possible to have in a democracy, not to mention that he turned a surplus into a deficit even before the 2008 crash, which, we were assured prior to the event, wasn't going to happen. So much for fiscal prudence. So much for transparency and accountability. We've got a robocalls investigation which, because it's ongoing, prevents me from adding 'honesty' to that last sentence, as much as I'd like to.

Everyone has their own political opinions and a few have voiced them here. Now I've added my own but I'm not getting into any anonymous online political debate beyond stating the above. That's because they're all beside the point of this thread. No one, from Stephen Harper to Elizabeth May (as webgogs acknowledges if I'm interpreting his words correctly), or any of their provincial counterparts, would stand in the way of Schaft Creek becoming a mine. No one in this thread has been able to cite one recent example whose metrics correspond to those of Schaft Creek being stopped or delayed for any reason, practical or ideological. There's a reason for that, and it's not just political self-interest.

This morning, I see that the word 'elections' has been sneakily introduced into a main forum message. Is it the wedge?