Thursday Morning Links

An assortment of articles for your perusal...

- Just you wait, the Cons' census vandalism will be forgotten any day now:

Released Thursday morning, the EKOS survey delivers nothing but bad news for the Tories, showing their support reduced to a narrow base of hardcore older Western males. This, as they bleed support from women, young people and university educated Canadians.

Quebec is now “scorched earth” for the Conservatives. The EKOS numbers indicate the party would be reduced to one seat from the 11 they now hold in that province.

It’s all because of the government’s decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census, pollster Frank Graves says.

“The direct testing suggests that the census initiative has gone over with a massive thud,” he said. “It is receiving near universal raspberries from a flummoxed electorate.”

- But of course, there's more to charting Canada's course for the future than simply recognizing the problems with the Cons. And while I'd agree with Jeffrey Simpson that his laundry list of democratic reforms deserves some discussion, there's little indication that the Ignatieff Libs are interested in doing anything but taking over the Harper command centre.

- Meanwhile, Marc Lee has his own set of game-changing policy proposals which are well worth a read.

- Finally, Dan Gardner offers some perspective on the relative risk to Canadians from the terrorism that causes the Cons' base to soil itself daily compared to other everyday dangers. But I worry that his mention of falls from trees will only help the right-wing fringe to turn toward environmentalists as their next target as the supposed terrorist threats come to nothing.