No Confidence in Canadian PM

Remove all ads!

Actually there were some MP's that left their current party over varied issues. One MP, who once ram for leader of the Conservatives defected and joined the Liberals during a key Budget vote. Another MP, this one a Liberal, left the Liberals to sit as an independent member because he didn't like how the Liberals were pushing members to support the re-definition of Marriage.

 

As the only Québec representative in this thread (unless i'm mistaken), I must rectify a number of things that have been said.

First off the bat, I'll just say that I don't consider myself a separatist. However, I am very patriotic concerning Québec. I do believe seperation is a solution, I juste don't think we're at that point yet, that the situation is that bad between Qc and Canada.

Now, that were things that were said that I don't quite agree with :

Well, not really. The Bloc is quite offcial about the fact that it only cares about the interests of Québec.

Nuance : The Bloc is a federal party, not a national one. I mean that they have no intention of governing the country, so they should not be called national. But they are a federal party, since their goal is to protect the interests of Québec in Parliament.

Though I don't remember off the top of my head the pourcentage of Québecois who voted for the Bloc in the last elections, it was waaaaaay more than 30%; more around 60%. The Bloc practically won Québec in the last elections (by the way, my town, Gatineau, has always been pratically the liberal home base in the province. And they won it again on the last elections, but by a margin of around 200 votes, which is veeeeeery little). It may change for the January elections, but most polls show it will be equal or higher still then last time. We'll have to wait and see.

I completly understand your point of view, and I agree. What suprises me in your resoning, though, is that you apparantly wish the conservatives be the official opposition (if they don't form the goverment). Well... how would Québec's interest be represented then? How is it okay for the West's interest to be represented but not Québec's? The NPD should be the opposition... They're more neutral.

I understand we're your coming from, but it has never been proven that he's a crook. So it's unfair to call him that. If I had to choose between the two, I would lean towards idiot, but that's me... (Though, it is possible to consider Martin a crook : He registered his canadian boat company overseas so he pays no tax to Canada. It's millions of dollars that could go to health care, school, etc.. so it's possible to consider he's stealing, but it's pushing the issue... )

I agree. The country's pretty sealed up. But I think it's unlikely, since the Bloc is still pretty strong over here. We'll just have to wait and see...

Ahhh, I was keeping this for the end. First, the Referendum is a provincial process. The Bloc has no authority to declare a Referendum. The Bloc has been very clear on this. Though they promote the seperation, their goal is to protect the interests of Québec in Parliament. They have no say in a possible referendum. Secondly, although I may be wrong, the "Clarity Act" does not exist, or is not in effect. If it does please prove it. And this act makes absolutly no sense! Canada has no say in what the Québecois decide to do. It would be like this : Suppose you live with your parents and three siblings. You want to go live in an appartment. Should the siblings decide wether you should go or not? Do their opinions has the same weight as you own?

Please don't interprate this as a debate on the Referendum question. I was just stating the absurdity of such an Act. This is not a thread about Québec per se, so if you want to talk about it further, PM me or start a thread. On with the election debate!

 

@Triactus

The reasoning behind my statement was that the Liberals have an Eastern focus, and, in their courting of Quebec for votes, Quebec's interests are being made their primary concern. Ontario will likely not require very much campaigning after all. They must, after all, have something to offer Quebec. The major battle for Quebec will, after all, be fought by two parties: the Bloc and the Liberals. I agree that a more neutral party should be the official opposition, but as it stands, the NDP are not likely to assume that mantle.

I disagree. Ultimatly during the election campaign, I can guarentee that such a question of Quebec will be raised. After all, The Liberals desperatly need seats in Quebec. They will be lucky to get a couple in the West, and the East is a split with the NDP. This election will be all about Quebec.

I bring this up because I think the other parties will try to use the nations fear of the Bloc to rally voters to them. Now, i agree with what you say here. However, the Bloc, although federal, is also provincial. I made the mistake of confusing the two entities in my post. Right now your provincial government is Liberal is it not? I guess what I was getting at was that, if the Liberals are thoroughly trounced in the Federal election by the Bloc in Quebec, it is likely that the next provincial election will reflect this. From there, it is within their power to innitiate the process of seperation (likely another topic to be raised by parties desperate for votes). It is hard to deny that, if the Bloc were in a solid possition of power, they would not try this, especially with so many of Quebec's citicizens so disaffected towards the federal government.

Once again, this may seem out of place in this topic. However, it is not. Already, Layton, the NDP leader, has taken this out of the closet in hopes of wooing some Quebec support (i admit, this is old news)
See here
Try here, for details. As for the Clarity act existing: try here, here , a juicy tidbit here here, and of course, here is what Wikipedia has to say

@Gnarfflinger
Off the top of my head i can recall(give or take) 4 such MP's. The issues raised recently over the definition of marriage has really split the country. It has, after all, proved to be a topic that defies party lines. I remember many MP's who were asking for the vote to be open so that they could vote according to their own (and their riding... who are we kiding, their own) beliefs. Hence the defections that you mentioned.

Currently there are a handful of independants floating around as well. Their number grew as some MP's quit their parties, but it will be interesting to see if they are reelected to their seat by their constituancy or not.

@Aldeth the Foppish Idiot
Although there arent many who vote according to their own whim, we do have a few notorius MP's who hurt their party by expressing their views-usually views that go against what the party is putting forward. I seem to recall a certain Liberal MP who was embaracing her party by repeatidly slandering Bush. Also, in the Canadian Alliance, the 2nd in command had been stating contridictory information about when the party was plainning on pushing forward the 'no confidence' vote.

I agree that this is going to be quite frequent during this election. Many people have no love for any of the big parties and will likely vote for the little guy. Maybe the Green Party will grab a few seats out of the deal. Yet, unfortunatly, this split vote will guarentee yet another minority government (an outcome that is 99% likely). Now, if only the marijuana party was federal... serious politics (haha...) would go up in smoke .

 

Why do we need the marijuana party? Why not just bring back the Rhino party instead? Legalization of pot was always been a part of the Rhino party's platform. Of course they always followed that by claiming they would also legalize pans and spatulas.

Their other promises included repealing the law of gravity, reducing the speed of light because it's much too fast, paving the province of Manitoba to create the world's largest parking lot, providing higher education by building taller schools, tearing down the Rocky Mountains so that Albertans could see the Pacific sunset, or moving them one metre west as a make-work project, abolishing the environment because it's too hard to keep clean and it takes up so much space, exploiting acid rain as an electrical energy source by placing dissimilar-metal electrodes in Canadian swimming pools in order to use them as batteries, and moving the Vatican to Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec to promote tourism.

On an amusing note, the Rhinos actually received slightly over 1% of all votes in the 1980 Federal election.

 

Actually, the Liberals want to decriminalize Marijuana. This begs the question: What do you need to be smoking to vote Liberal in the first place?

If Quebec does push for another Referendum, there has to be more than just Bloc dominance, but also the rest of Canada has to piss them off hardcore...


I stand behind my call for a Conservative Minority.

 

You know Gnarfflinger, I'm in the same boat. I mean what the hell, why not see a Conservative Minority? If anything, we'll get to see Harper sweat for a while.

@JSBB
I've only heard passing references to the Rhino party(usually accompanied with a chuckle). I guess it was before my time... but hey, if only

 

The Conservatives would be the worst thing to happen to Canada in my opinion, yes even worse then the Bloc. We're alreadyhave one leg in the bed with the USA bad enough, Stephan Harper has made it quite clear that he wants to jump right in.

 

The Liberals' position of decriminalizing possession of a small quantity of marijuana is hardly the same thing as legalizing it. There is still a fine for posession of small quantities and dealing would still be a criminal offence. The whole point of decriminalizing possession of a small quantity is that you avoid tying up the courts with insignificant cases and stop these people from having a criminal record and thus being unable to obtain employment.

 

For the sake of those who still don't quite get it, I will attempt to explain the Canadian political system for those in other countries who are unfamiliar.

Each riding for Parliament (the legislative branch) is contested by candidates from each party. At present there are about 300 ridings in Canada (last time I knew for sure it was 295, but I'm sure that with population rising it's gone up by a bit.)

The party that secures the most ridings (holds a majority) forms the official governnment for the next several years (5 maximum). Working off the assumption of exactly 300 seats in Parliament (300 ridings) if a party gets 151 seats it has a clear majority, and that party forms the government. The leader of that party is declared the Prime Minister -- he too needs to have won the election in his own riding. He selects his Cabinet (the Executive branch) from other elected Members of Parliament.

With me? OK. That Cabinet makes policy and puts forward bills. It is assumed that the Prime Minister's own party will support him. If he tries to pass a bill that is horribly unpopular, the Parliament will defeat the bill. If this happens, then the ruling party is deposed and an election is immediately called. In theory, that means that then Prime Minister and his cabinet (the executive branch) is responsible to the Pariliament (legislative branch) and must accede to their wishes. Thus, the will of the majority of Canadians is supposedly always represented.

In practice, the Prime Minister has a fellow called the whip, and he bullies the members of the party into voting the party line. If an MP votes against the will of the Cabinet, he will be punished. He will not get to sit on influential committees. If he persists in defying the party, he can be ejected from the party. In that case he either joins another party or sits as an Independent.

Things get tricky when a party has a plurality instead of a majority. For instance, the Liberals could get 40% of the popular vote. The Bloc, the Conservatives and the NDP could get 20% each. What this means is that 60% of the country does not want the Liberals, but they still are the largest party. This forms what is called Minority government -- the Liberals will attempt to make compromises with one or more of the other parties in order to get the 10.1 percent more votes it needs to get a majority in Parliament. These alliances often don't last too long, which means eventually a government bill gets defeated and the government, having "lost the confidence of the House", falls. A new election is called.

Many think this system is silly -- it does have serious flaws, the role of the whip in forcing MPs to vote against their consciences being but one. The Americans use a different method of attempting to ensure that the will of the majority is what prevails by their use of "checks and balances" Both systems seek to limit the ability of the executive branch to run roughshod over the populace.

There, I've given you about 1 month worth of the Grade 10 Alberta Social studies curriculum in one post. Hope this helps the Americans and Europeans who are not familiar with our system.

 

Just to clarify things a little, a non-confidence vote does not result if any bill is voted down. Mostly it is only supply bills (bills re. the spending of money - mostly the annual budgets). Alternately, the opposition can call for a vote of non-confidence - which is what happened this time.

 

Thanks JSBB -- my post was already a big bloody beast, so I didn't want to get into too many extraneous details.

In addition, I should weigh in on the present situation. As I have said before, because the Liberals pander to the Ontario population, usually to the detriment of the outlying regions, the Ontario populace will primarily vote for them, evil as they are. With the West voting for the Conservatives, the Quebec populace voting for the Bloc, and the NDP sucking valuable protest votes, we will once again have a Liberal minority government. That sucks. Though in fairness, I'm not sure if Harper would be any more competent, though he has yet to show he is as crooked as Paul and Jean and the rest of the Red cronies.

 

@Triactus:

Sorry for not being clear, but your rebuttal here is sadly irrevelant; I meant that approximately 30% of Canada's population reside in the province of Quebec; not discussing voter turnout dans la belle province at all...guess this means I actually have to work and get some exact numbers; dang it!


EDIT: Okay, it took a little work, but the most recent estimates from StatsCan are 32.8 million population of Canada altogether, and 7.6 million population of Quebec. That means Quebec holds approximately 23% percent of Canada's population - I'd overestimated


But back on-topic:

I don't see any significant change for the near future (next 5 years). As has been stated, the parties involved here are too entrenched in their own agendas and unwilling to compromise in order to make an effective government.

Mind you, the NDP seems flexible, and would probably be able to do a decent job - in shaking up the other parties, if nothing else - however it is clear that the VAST majority of Canadians don't think so...

@JSBB:

Remember that the Rhino Party would've declared war with Belgium as a popular belgian comic showed the hunting and killing of a rhino...

And then, can we not forget the Natural Law party, their leader magician Doug Henning, and their 'yogic flying'?

Seriously, I'm strongly thinking on either voting NDP or - if the heavens permit such a candidate in 'conservative,' parochial Newfoundland - independent as a protest, or scratching in someone; Rick Mercer perhaps.

[ December 03, 2005, 06:58: Message edited by: apathetic empath ]

 

Yes but then the Rhino party agreed to scrap their plans for the war with Belgium if the Belgian government would give them some mussels and a case of Belgian beer.

Apparently the Belgian goverment had a sense of humour because the Belgian embassy actually sent over the beer and mussels.

 

In theory, a minority Government should be really good for Canada. Sure the biggest party gets the power, but they have to co-operate with other parties to get anything done. It becomes a check and balance to one party having all the power. Too many unpopular bills have been passed by majority governments because the opposition couldn't do any thing about it.

The problem is when other parties want to act like children and put their own agendas ahead of the best interests of the nation. That's what we see too often in the last 20 years, and it's why minority governments falter so quickly.

 

Just an update to where things have gone so far.
Update

Not only are the words 'referendum' being tossed around with regards to Quebec, but there are other tidbits such as 'Nazi-like' being shot around as well. All this and the election is still a month away. Best break out the popcorn and write down the insults for your own personal use as i'm sure the polititians will be getting quite creative

 

I normally don't include quotes, but this one blew my mind -- the way the Liberals treated Quebec was and always has been to throw ungodly sums of money at them, usually at the expense of the rest of the country. Quebec has nothing to complain about.

If the Liberals and the Bloc were to join forces in a minority government, it would just mean more of the same -- a big vacuum cleaner sucking the vitality out of the rest of the country and dumping the stolen goods into the hands of the ever-whining Quebecois.

 

Very interesting to see how the Canadian govt. works. Keep going, fellas.

Sidenote. Nobody's answered my question about taking Celine Dion back...

 

Death Rabbit, the majority of us Canadians hope that, if we continue to ignore her existance, she will stay away. Now, by mentioning her, i may be personally responsible if she starts a Canadian tour...

 

Hmm now that gives me an idea, if one of the parties were to promise to revoke Dion's citizenship, officially disavow her as having ever been Canadian, and ban her from entering the country - that could shift the balance of power enough for that party to win a majority government in the election.

There may be a wide divison in political opinion throughout the country but I think that is one issue that most of us could agree on.

 

QUOTE]I agree that a more neutral party should be the official opposition, but as it stands, the NDP are not likely to assume that mantle.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I agree. I was saying NDP because they're the biggest national party behind the liberals and conservatives. But they're not ready for power, not by a long shot...

I was only saying I didn't want a following debate on wether or not it was a good idea for Québec to separate. It's not really relevant. I wasn't saying we couldn't talk about Québec.

Not necessarily. Yes, the general tendency is that people who vote for the Bloc will vote for the PQ. But it's not absolute. Maybe they will vote for the liberals in the federal election because they feel that they're the party that has the best chance to be in power (or lesser of two evils to some), but will vote PQ because they don't trust the provincial liberal party. On the other hand, I voted for the Bloc in the last elections (and not afraid to say it), but I will very probably not vote for the PQ in the coming provincial elections. The PQ is a bunch of amateurs. Just look at the party in the last couple of years. Even the NPD has more credibility...

I seriously didn't know the Clarity Act had been passed. I knew about it, but I though it was just an idea that came up after '95. Don't I feel like the brightest horse around. But it doesn't really change what I said. It's a stupid Act, which should not exist. It's full of biased laws. Even lots of non-Québecois Canadians were (and are) against it. Joe Clark and his party denounced it at the time. Jack Layton recently also did, but he's trying to cover it up right now...

In a sense, I agree. I see where you're coming from. But you also have to realize that some decisions may be unpopular at first, but widely recognized as great thinking later. Or decisions that are good for the future, but bad for the present. A minority government is too cemented in the present, they cannot govern with a larger picture. (though that doesn't necessarily mean they, if they're a majority government, will govern with a larger picture in mind, but they could...)

Well that's juste the thing. They all have a different definition of what is the best interests of the nation. That's what the election debates are about.

What the hell is that?? ever-whining? We just want to be treated as equals! What is wrong with that?