With a very weak Liberal party, Still Prime Minister Harper (the Daily Show joke) tried to govern as if he had a majority, counting on the fact that the opposition’s coffers were in horrible shape, and that the largest opposition party has a lame duck leader, and wouldn’t be pushing for an election for most likely another year. Thinking that he could get away with it, he tried to push legislation through that would beat them down further (not to mention removing the employees in the public sector’s right to strike) and it blew up in his face. You can only push people around so long before they start pushing back. I heard something on CBC saying that not only did Harper unite the right, but he also united the left as well. Serves him right.
Harper would have much more credibility if he would quit using the term “Separatist” Coalition.
I see you are watching question period as well.
Yeah! Curious how much was in French… 
Plays into the “Separatist” angle, but would just play into fear mongering meme.
The Separatists are coming, the Separatists are coming.
The Coalition is just as bad.
Ok here’s my solution to the fine mess that the Conservatives have served up aided by a rather unholy little alliance.
The GG instructs the nation to go to the polls, with the following proviso…
The same voters list that was used in October to be used again (considering that only some 56 percent or so bothered to vote shouldn’t cause too much trouble)
The election campaign will be no longer than two weeks, as long as Election’s Canada can arrange things quick enough.
There will be no paid advertising allowed, none of the bs negative ads, pointless advertorials and such
There would be a few televised debates, (providing these folks can be in the same room for more than five minutes) on the issues facing the nation, the economy, the economy, the economy and oh maybe Afghanistan, etc…
We then are asked to pick our next government, if we then elect another minority government, well so be it, if it’s A Liberal minority they can collect their new friends and form a government with the nation’s blessing.
That way the people have the final say, which is really the only way a democracy should work.
Not through constitutional procedures last used in the 1920’s and which didn’t work very well then either…
I am very curious to see what the GG will do with this situation. I don’t think she’ll prevent the government from falling or grant Harper another election (we just went to the freakin polls). Very curious indeed. Interesting times we live in. You might be correct, ThePodunkian. I don’t know, we’ll see.
Interesting is true, though image wise we’ll be taking a beating… as far as a functional state goes…
Found this of interest from the National Post, and while they’re a rather right wing little operation, the points none the less are of interest to read and give some thought to.
network.nationalpost.com/np/blog … tists.aspx
It is interesting to wonder if the prospect of a coalition government had been brokered during the last campaign how the election would have turned out.
I just can’t help but wonder what the vote totals would have looked like if Stephane Dion had said that during the campaign if we don’t form a majority we will ask the Bloc and the NDP to join us in governance.
Perhaps he would have won, then again perhaps those waffling Ontario seats (and a few more in Atlantic Canada) would have held their nose and voted for harper.
As you say we shall see how it all shakes out, though it’s clearly some uncharted waters for the modern era of Canadian politics .
Most elections are about leadership and I find it hard to suggest that any of the four choices presently in Ottawa showed much of that in the past election.
After an election of fear mongering, green shifts, corporate evilness and repetitive arguments about national identity, what were Canadians left with? Of course it was a minority government.
That was the message voters across the nation sent. Not one of you are good enough to be given the keys to this thing. So spend the next TWO years (based on patterns) earning them.
What do they do? They show up to Ottawa to have a government, elected by Canadians to get on with the show, and they fumble worse than a Detroit Lion.
It will hard pressed for any of these men to say they have shown true leadership in the past week. Instead of finding a way to make what Canadians wanted to work, they allowed their petty election campaign behaviour seep in to the House of Commons.
There is no boo hoo for Harper. He put this on himself as he is the one piloting the boat.
Dion isn’t even liked by his own party and never was. Why do you think he was the “compromise” choice when he was named Liberal leader?
Layton has always been third best in Ottawa.
Gilles and The Bloc are a funky separatist band.
And none of these guys are leaders. So if we have another election, we are certain to be stuck with the same government. But if we don’t have another election we are saying that single votes don’t amount to much.
Maybe its time for the single transferrable vote, i don’t know.
What I do know is ‘leadership’ is a long word with deep meaning. I suspect at this point not one of those men in Ottawa could even pronounce the word let alone describe it.
Hah - the other parties couldn’t even get their act together in this round of debates, what makes you think they could if we were to be forced to go to the polls again? The majority of the last debate was taken up with bitchy attacks on Harper - there were only a couple of times when the other leaders actually voiced their opinion on something.
And, just a personal opinion, but that crazy Green Party woman should never have been included in the debate. My feeling is no seats in Parliament, no debate! Oh, add to that the fact that she doesn’t know French very well and yeah, she’d be a great leader for this country. 
(sarcasm)
I think she wangled her way into the debate because there was a consensus that the Greens might finally get a seat. Since they STILL can’t manage a single win even after being allowed into the leaders debates, I doubt the Green leader will be invited during the next election–unless the political climate (hehe… get it… she’s the Green leader) has shifted.
Well she’ll be too busy to be in a debate anyways, according to the globe and mail she’s going to get a Senate seat for her part in the grand alliance…
.> That there is the best argument ever for an elected Senate.
Hah! Definitely.
Bakerwriter: Well said.
I don’t think that’s very accurate. There have been coalitions, including governing coalitions, in Canadian provincial politics as well as federal.
And, of course, if you consider any minority government that has lasted more than a few months, then there have been many informal coalitions recently, including Harper’s own government.
The root of the current events is that Harper called an election because he said that parliament wasn’t working. Despite being able to pass many bills (and not have his government fall), he felt that it was below him to have to depend on consensus and agreements with other parties to stay in power. That’s how a minority government works.
I wonder if local opinion would change if a new government committed money to expand the Prince Rupert port as part of a stimulus package?
It’s true Mig–over the last few years Harper’s Conservatives have had to act using an informal coalition, with the members of the coalition changing depending on what was being passed.
However, you have to concede that there is a big difference between necessary, informal coalitions and the formal, planned process we’re about to see. It might be more akin to a comparison between apples and oranges.
So your major complaint is that this is a formal version of what Harper has been doing informally?
It’s Apples and Oranges to compare an informal version to a formal version?
Ok, then I conceded your point, and you are right. They’re doing a formal version of what Harper has been doing informally! The shock! The horror!
My post was a response to the idea that coalitions (both formal and informal) don’t really exist in Canada. But of course they do, and in recent history there have been numerous examples of both formal and informal coalitions in both provincial and federal politics.
Well as we’ve seen with the Bloc and now Elizabeth May everyone has a price, so hey I"m sure if they throw money here, we all forget about the principle of a democratically “elected” government.
Look I have no quarrel with a coalition, but from the point of view that we have elected said coalition with our eyes open and the backroom deals exposed for what they are…
This particular exercise is rather odious because they’ve pretty well just decided to give themselves jobs withouth actually having the approval of the voters.
With the exception of the Byng controversy of the twenties, I believe all the other informal coalitions you mention involved the party with the most votes in a minority situation seeking out a coalition from other parties to remain the government.
Not the opposition parties deciding to revisit the last election without the need to bother the voters to have a say.
Hey if Canadians decide that Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton who will never form a government as long as the country exists should have a say in how to run the country so be it.
But I"ll hazard a guess that most Canadians aren’t particularly thrilled with that prospect…
It’s kind of humourous to note that this is the same portal that had many participants up in arms over a perceived secret deal by the Mayor over a single hiring, now having no quarrel with a group of politicians meeting in secret to take charge of the government, create their own jobs, reward their fellow MPs with new positions and pay without having the sureness of their position to seek out the opinion of the electorate…
As inconvenient and pointless as it may seem, it is much better to have the voters approve of something this drastic than to just let the opposition decide they really know what’s best for all of us.
The voter turnout was pathetic at the last election because most people figure their vote doesn’t count, now they’ll have even more ammunition to work with that theory as we won’t even have the chance to say yes or no to such a change.
It’s okay in this situation because they’re not in breech of Section 122 of the Community Charter, I guess.
Touche; the best part of partisan politics is that to participate you only need to lean to the left or the right. Rational thinking need not apply.