No Confidence in Canadian PM

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/11/28/canada.government/index.html

Since I know Canadian politics like I know...um, like...Mexican politics...how bout some Canadians weigh in on the issue?

I was pretty surprised when I heard this on the radio today. I imagine this is a pretty big deal.

Wishful request: Any chance your new PM will take Celine Deion back? Any?

 

Yeesh. I've never even heard of this guy's screw-ups and he gets kicked out; meanwhile Bush is screwing up royally on a global scale and he's not gettin' booted?

 

My views on this tend to lean towards the negative. The conservative want to believe that they have power in the Eastern provinces, the Bloc wants to believe that they can influence the west and the NDP's will join up with whoever wants them more.

Basically what will happen is that we'll go through another election and all that, and end up with the exact same situation. The Liberals will have a minority government the main opposition will be the conservatives, the NDP will get a few seats and the rest of the country will continue to wonder why the Bloc is a national party when they only effect Quebec.

By the way if the conservatives win. I'm moveing to Australia.

 

Paul Martin did not get kicked out of office. If my understanding of Canadian politics is correct, the Senate/MPs voted unanimously in a vote of 'no confidence' (watched it on tv and was waiting for someone to vote yes ), which means there'll be a new, forced election for PM.

Canada let's the PM run when he likes or every 5 years if he hasn't declared an election yet, unlike the 4 year runs in the States.

The NDPs and Bloc want the Liberal party out of power. Period. They agreed to force Martin to run for re-election. AFAIK, Martin was not booted out of office or impeached or anything like that.

 

Well, voluntarily the PM can declare an election anywhere from 3-5 years into his/her tenure as leader.

This issue is because the government has more seats than any other party...BUT has less than half. The other parties ganged up (IIRC the Conservatives and the Bloc managed to persuade the NDP to side with them) and said "we don't like this, try it again"

Benan summed up the consequences pretty accurately: the Block Quebecois is really only an factor in their titular province (but it has about 30% [wild guess] of the population), the Conservative party is entrenched in the 'Wealthy West' and some of Ontario (the other big pop. province), the NDP used to be a mover and shaker in the prairies and out east here with the poor, but they seem to have less drive than even the US Democratic Party and the Liberals just pick up the rest.

Basically the upcoming election WILL result in a similar breakdown of seats in Parliament (here comes the first half of my nic ) and the liberals will have to start appeasing the desires of the other parties to keep them from calling another vote of no-confidence on the big red 'L'.

It's rather more byzantine than US politics, IMO...

 

To be pessimistic for a moment, i'd say that the liberals will once again return to power as a minority. However, this time around, its actually highly probable that, with the split vote between Conservatives/NDP/Bloc, the Bloc might end up as the 'official opposition.' (a very scary prospect if you live in the West... mmm, no representation of western interests...). At the very least, the Bloc will gain MANY seats in Quebec, resulting in yet another Referendum (only, this time if i remember correctly, due to the Clarity Act, the whole of Canada must vote on it to make it official).

Basically, Ontario will likely fall back to the Liberals (think beaten wife syndrome) and this will give them the seats that they require to form another useless minority gov.

Oh, and if that aforementioned scary possibility (Bloc as opposition) occurs, I think I'll put my weight behind the currently pathetically understaffed Western Separatist Party (who i voted for in the last bloody election... hey, the guy was an explosive technician )

EDIT: I wouldn't say Canadian politics are Byzantine just yet, not enough assassinations(poison here tends to freeze... maybe a poison freezy), mutilations (if we're talking post-Heraclius), or intrigue (well, maybe when we're talking Liberals and their Organized Crime buddies )

 

Yeah we all knew this was coming from the moment the results came in from the last election. When you have a minority government with none of the parties really seeing eye to eye on anything then it is pretty much guaranteed that the government won't last long.

Given that Martin had planned on calling the election in January I really don't see what the other nimrods think they are doing except ticking everyone off. Maybe they think that if no one bothers paying any attention to the election campaigning and/or no one bothers voting then maybe someone can pull off an upset.

I think that we will probably end up right back where we are right now. The only things this election will accomplish will be to waste lots of money and annoy everyone with election campaigning during the Christmas holidays.

Oh, and I will vote Liberal. The conservative party is much too conservative on social issues (and I wouldn't trust Harper to organize a picnic let alone run the country), the NDP are too communistic, and even if I did still live in Quebec as an Anglo I wouldn't be voting for the Bloc.

I know it would be absolutely terrible for the country but I would love to see the Rhino party form a majority government - that would make for a very interesting five years and it would be a good wake-up call for the serious politicians.

[ November 29, 2005, 05:31: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

I don't like any of the goofballs that lead the parties. Martin is a crook or an idiot. Gomery's second report will decide that. But the Liberals are too crooked, but they are smart enough to suck up to Ontario. Harper doesn't strike me as a leader, and the Conservatives don't really have a vision for Canada. The NDP had their chance in Ontario, and they really buggered things up. And the Bloc only gives a damn about one province. My bet is another minority government, but get used to the words Prime Minister Harper...

 

For this dumb glue-sniffing American down south...please explain how the minority party who was just booted out of office so recently after an election will be heading back into power. I must say I find this perplexing. Explain how they got there, too, for that matter.

Color me a curious bunny. With fluffy balls.

 

@DR:
As I understand it, there is no majority party; just four major ones that are each comprised of less than half. Sounds like the liberals have the upper hand, though. Maybe a 40/30/20/10 split or something like that.

 

Because the alternatives (Convervatives or NDP) are a worse choice.

See previous answer.

You can put me squarely in the camp which says "I want a change - please give me an option."

Maybe the Green Party will be running a candidate in my riding...

 

My main problem with this is that they couldn't wait another 10 months. Then I'd be able to vote! But oh well. I'm going toknow more than my fair share about this by the election, as my law teacher 'promised' us that we will be going over it every single day, because theres a few people in my class who can vote. But oh well, if we don't have a competant government, I'll gladly take Paul Martin's place.

 

Actually, I'm hearing a frightening trend: People that won't vote because they don't like the choices. I'm voting for a party that's not one of the main four. I hope that enough people voter for these other parties that the big 4 grow a frickin' brain (Okay maybe I am dreaming here) and actually do what the people want for a change...

 

A question from someone with no knowledge of how Canadian politics works: Do you vote for the party instead of the MP? I thought that your system was based on the Westminster Parliament system.

 

Another name for this kind of thing: Electile Dysfunction

 

Rotku: Here in Canada, we vote for the MP, but some people will vote for the party that the MP represents, instead of the person.

 

I would go even further than that and say that just about everyone votes based upon the party rather than the candidate.

The party members pretty much always vote in parliament according to how their party is voting so it really does not make any difference who the member of parliament is, just which party they belong to.

Honestly, I don't think there would be any observable difference if you replaced the candidates in my election riding with trained chimps.

Going back to Death Rabbit's question, the level of support that the population is willing to give each party has not changed significantly since the last election. As such we can expect the Liberals to take most of the seats in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, the Bloc Quebecois will win most of the seats in Quebec, the Conservatives will dominate in the Prarie provinces, and B.C. will have mixed results.

The odds of any one of these regions having a significant shift in party loyalty is relatively low and as such the election results will probably be the same as last time. The reason why the last government failed, and the next one will probably fail too within a year or two, is that none of these parties are really willing to make the necessary compromises to make a minority government work.

So we will probably be having an election every year or two until some geographical area decides to shift loyalties to ensure that we get a majority government. I suspect that the most likely shift would be for more of Quebec to go Liberal but we can only wait and see.

 

Wow, my northern neighbors have strange practices indeed. I can't believe that you are required to vote the party line. So there are no McCain or Santorum equivalents in Canada? (McCain and Santorum are nominally republicans, but side with the dems on a whole slew of other issues.)

 

The members of parliament CAN vote however they wish but voting against party lines will get you bounced out of the party pretty quickly. If the members of parliament really disagree with their party's position they will typically not show up for the vote hoping that by being absent the numbers will shift in the other side's favour.

There are some "Open Votes" i.e. ones where the party does not have a position and the members can vote as they see fit.