Canadian Politics

The current system in Canada just proves that all political systems are flawed when the participants are more interested in their own ego rather than the people they are elected to serve.

Harper is getting what he deserves.  I'm not thrilled about the NDP being anywhere near the finances of our country during an economic crisis but Harper brought this upon himself.

We are facing a lot these days and he trys to use an economic update during this crisis to pass legislation that would cripple the other political parties.  His arrogance is unreal.  I am furious with conservatives over this.  Harper preached about how what the country needed now was cooporation and for parties to work together.  Then he does this.

I doubt Canadians will be giving the conservatives another shot at a majority anytime soon.  I don't want Dion at the helm but I'd take him any day over Harper.  

Alright, I'll bite.

The Coalition of Stooges played this well and Harper blew it.  If politics is a game, you can score one for the Lefties.  With all the 'let's play nice' talk going into this sitting of parliment it's a little rash to come out swinging and trying to put the screws to the other parties by putting up a non-confidence motion 5 minutes into the first day on the job.

Take the politics out of this and what do we have?  We have three parties that want power - and will do anything to achieve it.  Liberals, coming off their worst election results in the history of Canada, have a leader that has already been ousted because his own caucus doesn't want him in charge.  Yet, Dion is suddenly fit to be PM?  Sorry, don't think so.  Layton, who would never in a million years get into power through any democratic means will suddenly have 6 cabinet seats and he himself making policies with Dion.  All this propped up by a seperatist party, who don't even have MP's outside of their own province.  The gull of the Liberal party, who somehow feel they are entitled to be in power, is sickening.

Global, you talk that Harper deserves this...okay fine.  What about Canadians?  What do we deserve?  At least Harper has the only national party with a caucus from all provinces - with cabinet members from all provinces.  None of the other parties have that.  The Stooges have planned to spend $30B of taxpayer money to prop up struggling industries.  They have no plans, just a number...which isn't even in writing.  Where is this money going?  Well, It'll be to Ontario manufacturing and auto companies.  The Big 3 American auto companies will be bailed out here before the US even rights a cheque.  The rest of the money will be for Quebec "culture".  Take money from the west to support the east.  Sorry, but the west is tired of these games.  Alberta seperatists will once again be rearing their heads soon and will have more support then ever.

I'm only one over-taxed Canadian that is sick and tired of central / eastern Canadians trying to tell me that I should hand over my hard earned money so they can have a lifestyle better than my own. 

I'm no Harper lover, and agree that his style of ruling isn't very cooperative at times...but, I'm sorry the alternative here with these three idiots in charge is far worse in my mind.  The Coalition of Stooges have no mandate except to rule.

Back to the polictical game of it all; The best move Harper can make is resigning and lett the Three Stooges have at it.  Global, I agree that Harper is likely done, but not the Conservative party.  The Three Stooges will struggle for power within their own ranks and implode.  The Bloc' have signed on to support this for just 18 months.  The Canadian electorate will not forget how Liberals cozied up to the Bloc' to gain power. 

I'm from out west too ... Lived most of my life in Sask and BC with a 5 year stint in Ontario when I was in grade school.

Do Canadians deserve this?  No they don't.  I would prefer that the party that was elected remain in power.  However Harper has really given the opposition no choice here.  They threatened to take away public financing (which would completely cripple all other parties) and although they have taken that off the table Harper has shown his cards.  That is the way he is going to run government and I agree with the liberals and NDP that they should be removed.  

At this point I very much doubt the Liberals feel they are entitled to power.  They know and we all know they f'ed up by choosing Dion as leader but I believe they have no choice here.  They were backed into a corner and had to react.  The Liberals get crap from the conservatives for abstaining last year and now that they say no we are not going to play your games anymore they get crap again.  The libs had 2 choices.  1 they continue to abstain, 2 they bring down the gov.  Harper put them in the position to make that choice and this time they didn't back down.  He was warned they wouldn't back down this time around so this outcome completely falls on him.  I am furious that he would continue to push like he had a majority.  What did he expect was going to happen? 

Harper is just a terrible leader in general.  The economist couldn't win a majority during an economic crisis, with the weakest liberal leader in recent history who was running on a large carbon tax!  It's time for Harper to be shown the door.  There is a lot of talent in the conservative party.  Surely there is someone else who can lead the way.  Jim Prentice maybe?   

As far as Dion goes he's not really leading the party anymore.  He's on the way out in May and will be replaced.  What we are really getting is a coalilition lead by Ignatieff.  My hope is that Ignatieff leads the liberals back to the centre.  God help us if Rae wins the leadership...

Lastly about the stimulus.  Of course there are no details of the plan they are not in power yet.  We don't even know if 30 billion is the number.  To comment on how that money will be spent is nothing more then guessing on your part.  

I'm not happy with this outcome either, but the conservatives messed up royally here and their are no good options.  It's time for Layton, Dion and Harper to move on and make way for new leadership.  As long as those three are around we will have no choice but a bad one.  

And yet this is the argument the Coalition of Losers is using...

“Since the recent federal election, it has become clear that the government headed by Mr. Harper has no plan, no competence and, no will to effectively address this crisis,” the three leaders wrote in an open letter to all Canadians."

 He didn't say they had no plan, he said they didn't give out details.  Don't show your cards too early.  The game isn't over yet.  

Don't get me wrong here I don't think this coalition are going to do any better then the conservatives.  The fact that they NDP are going to be that close to power makes me shutter.  

The conservatives don't know what to do either though.  They have no plan and either does this coalition.  What we do know from the past that no stimulus is a bad idea.  So we need to do something.  It is pretty much agreed that infrastructure is the best way to do that so we are left with a conservative package that accelerates infrastructure spending or a liberal/NDP package that accelerates infrastructure spending.  The details and the amount might differ slightly but regardless of who it comes from it is going to look pretty much the same.  

I had high hopes for the conservatives to bring in some sound economic policy when they took power.  Instead they cut the GST (Income tax cuts would have been a much better choice), they increased spending far beyond GDP growth and they pandered to Quebec every chance they got.  They could have used our last boom to really pay down the debt but instead they spent spent spent just like everyone else.  

This coalition sucks.  Our other option though is an arrogant little man who choose to try and divide the country during a time of crisis rather then unite it.  You're getting a turd one way or another.  Hopefully if conservatives lose power they will give Harper the boot and put someone respectable in charge.  

Somewhat of an educated guess though.  The coalition's accord on the economy includes these statements:

"Investing in key sector strategies (like manufacturing, foresty and automotive) designed to create and save jobs, with any aid contingent on a plan to transform these industries and return them to profitability and sustainability"

"Support for culture, including the cancellation of budget cuts announced by the Conservative government"

There is also a longish paragraph about accelerating capital spending on infrastructure, but specifically mentioned is spending for First Nations, Metis and Inuit.

The entire economic accord can be found here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/pdf/1201accord.pdf

The coalition accord can be found here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/pdf/1201policy.pdf

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against spending some money in these areas - but a lot of this was already introduced by the Conservatives.  Now it just includes candy for special interests groups.

The more I think about this though, the more I realize that its not so much about the coalition government.  They can do this because its in the laws to do so.  Somebody at some point thought it was a good idea, so be it.  My problems are these:

1) A seperatist party will be consulted on government policies and decisions.  This party is what is holding this coalition together so you have to ask; What do we Canadians have to sacrifice to the Bloc' so Dion can be PM?

2) Moving to a significant defecit - while not in writing, it's quoted at 30B right now.  While I know some theorist economy guy will say that it's a good idea to spend our way out of a recession (which we still aren't technically in, yet), but sorry I don't buy it.  I do agree with something Harper once said - it's easy for a government to get into defecit spending but its very hard for them to get out.  I fear its a slippary slope.  I believe we are still ~500B in debt.  Clearly, we still haven't paid back the last bunch of money we borrowed during the 70s, 80s and 90s.  Why wasn't more money paid back during the good times of the late 90's, 2000's?  It never works the way an Economist says.

It will be an interesting 2009 in Canadian politics.  Ignatieff seems to be the next PM, but stranger things have happened.

Your missing Duceppe in there, but I absolutely agree.  Sadly, we don't even have the Right of Recall in this country.  Once elected, MPs can do anything they want.  It is interesting to see Obama's preparation down south.  Here is a guy that is taking his rivals into his inner circle.  That says a lot.  You'd never find that in Canada with the group we have in Ottawa.

There are 5 major parties.  Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc, and Greens (debatable if you could call them major).  

I don't think we would be better off with a 2 party system.  Right now we are in a mess because no one has a majority and there is a lot of instability.  However history shows most of the time we end up with a majority.  Consecutive minority government like this force political parties to pay attention to the will of the people.  If the 2 main parties (liberals and conservatives) are not paying attention people go else where and those parties are forced to look long and hard as to why the people didn't give them a mandate.  Realistically there are only 2 parties that will govern but the 3rd parties give people an outlet to reject the agenda of the 2 main guys and force them to get back in line with the will of the people.     

In a way you are right, this mess we are in is because of too many parties.  But, if you have the right people in charge of all these parties I think its a better system.  Unfortunately the cream doesn't rise to the top of Canadian politics.  In the US it does seem you have a higher pedigree of politicians (for the most part) - whereas here in Canada, the well educated, progressive thinkers usually stay in private business.  We really do have idiots running the show.

I think the 2 party system ends up catering to their respective bases and the electoral process becomes an Us vs. Them.  Very divisive, it seems to me...and that's what I saw during your election.

 Part of the problem with Canadian politics is that we don't vote for our leader, we vote for his party.  This puts us in the position of either voting for a party we agree with that brings along a leader we may not like or voting for a leader we like and getting whatever party he brings along.  

Personally I vote for our local constituant and am shocked sometimes when I see the background of some of those who run for parliament.

I seriously hope that Harper resigns (not holding my breath on that one), or at the very least removes flaterty from his post as finance minister (again hope but doubt it).  Conservatives need to show some humility now.  No one is without blame in this situation and if the conservatives ramp up the redoric they are doing canadians a dis-service.  Flaterty should go at the very least as an offering to the opposition and as a show to Canadians that the conservatives realize the mistake they made and are trying to move forward to make amends.    

If you like Harper or not no one can deny that he will never be able to govern the country without a majority now.  By bashing the bloc as he has done over the past few days to win support out west he has pretty much insured that with him at the helm he will never get that majority. The conservatives will be losing most if not all of the gains they have made in quebec making a majority a near certain impossibility.  My guess is he will gain a few seats in the west and east and lose them in Ontario and Quebec over this.  

Now that the confidence vote has been put off Dion and co should now make public meassures they want to see in the budget, the conservatives should adopt some of them and the house should pass it.  We cannot afford economically to have no governement to act during the next 3 months.  I think if the government does fall at the end of Jan we are going to see another election and not a coalition government.

What I really want to see above all else is cooporation now.  If Harper keeps the redoric up, doesn't step down and we get another election all we will have to show for it is another conservative minority that will be completely ineffective.  

Question to the conservatives.  

Do you believe Harper is they guy who should still be leading this country given the events of the past few days or do you think the conservatives should make way for new leadership?

Do you think there is any chance Harper can run the government effectively at this point without a majority?

I am certainly in agreement with you on this. 

Re another Conservative minority - my fear is the Bloc would then be the official opposition as I feel the Liberals may have lost more voters than gained by forming this coallition with the Bloc.

Re is Harper the one to lead the Conservatives - in all honesty I don't like the leaders of any of the parties with Harper being the one I dislike the least.

I really dislike Dion and Harper.  Layton seems like a decent guy but I am largely in disagreement with the economic platform of the NDP so they wont get my vote regardless.  

Can you seriously see a functional parliment under harper without a majority though?  I can't see a way he could govern unless Canadians step up and give him a majority.  With all the quebec bashing though I can't see how that would be possible any time soon.

I forsee many crappy years ahead.