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Crazy Canadian Politics

I'm sure most of you know what has been happening in the weeks before the Canadian parliament was prorogued. However, for those of you who don't know, here's a very brief recap:

Background:

The story begins with the Conservative party of Canada presenting a "mini-budget" to make changes before the full budget comes out in January. In this budget, among other things, they included a bill to remove the per-vote subsidies for political parties. They said that political parties needed to "tighten their belts" during the economic recession. This bill was a matter of confidence, meaning that if it was stopped that it would mean that another election would be called. The rest of the political parties rely fairly heavily on these subsidies, and by presenting this bill Harper gave the other party leaders two options: a) let the bill through and try to find new methods of funding, or b) stop the bill and set off another election which no one wants and for which they would be blamed.

The other parties didn't take too kindly to the removal of the subsidies and threatened Harper's government with a coalition (they would team up to form a majority in the house of commons and take over governing the country). When the coalition threats remained after Harper removed the bill, Harper asked the Governor General to prorogue parliament (put it on hold until next January). The GG granted this and Parliament Hill is currently inactive.

There are two sides to this debate. One side supports Harper and says that a coalition is undemocratic because Harper was voted to be the PM and anyone else leading the country would be against the will of the people.

The other side notes that as long as a majority of the house of commons supports one person, that person should be the PM. It is democratic as long as the leader has the most votes in parliament.

I want to hear your opinions on this. I'm trying to remain neutral for the time being, because I want to be able to see the outcome without any bias one way or the other.

I think both the Conservatives and the opposition are being WAY overboard on all of this... Its a complicated situation as well... I am no Harper fan, but the Liberals are all over the place right now.

What they need is some regrowth and a new vision, as well as a young, charismatic leader.

Unless Harper really didn't get the message from this whole coalition threat, we are quite unfortunately not likely to see a new PM at the head of the country anytime soon.

With the appointment of Michael Ignatieff as head of the Liberal Party, the whole idea of the coalition is pretty much dead. Had Bob Rae been chosen for the position, it might have stood a chance, but Ignatieff has not shown any kind of sign that the idea of allying with the NDP appealed to him, save as a tool to threaten Harper and get him to beg for the Liberal's support on his budget.

The prorogation of Parliament has given the Conservatives a good deal of time to grease the Liberal wheel, both by pressuring them into collaborating on their economic plan and by putting more of their money to work on a nationwide anti-coalition campaign.

As I have said, unless Harper decides to commit political suicide by not giving in to at least a few of the Liberal's most major demands with the coming budget, we're stuck with this bickering, divided government for a while.

Harper is screwed big time after pulling this off. Not only did he not have a plan for the economy, but he was more concerned about his own job then the jobs of the rest of the country, but he has now lost the little support in quebec he had. Come next election I can't see any converative MP from quebec getting in at all.

There are fair arguments for both sides of this debate. Obviously those in favor of the coalition will say that the coalition is completely democratic, while those who voted conservative will say that this coalition goes against the will of the voters.

Unfortunately for the Conservatives, the coalition is completely legal - in fact, it's even written into the constitution that if a minority government leader can't keep government together and functioning, the opposition can form a coalition and take over the running of government and make it work.

So while some say that the coalition is undemocratic, they are wrong. This is still, however, a major turning point in Canadian politics. If the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc can get parliament to work, it could mean that future governments could be more willing to do the same. If it fails, however, it could be the end of coalitions in Canada for a long time. This is unprecedented territory in Canada - hopefully it works out for the best.

Videos - Rick Mercer Report - CBC Television

Everything you wanted to know about Canada but were afraid to ask. Now with pictures!

The only problem i have with Mercer, Stewart and Colbert is that they never get truly angry enough about stupid voting public and politicians. While that video is good and speaks a lot of truth, he doesn't point out how stupid those ministers shouting "treason" and stuff are.

This is true. If the MP shouting "treason" honestly believes what he is saying, it means that he does not know for a fact that it is treason, and is making things up as he goes, which is not a good trait for your local MP to have. However, If he does know that it is not treasonous, then he is deliberately lying to the people of Canada to try to get them to take the Conservative's side in this whole affair. And MPs lying like that is simply unacceptable.

I think the biggest reason that the political comedians like Mercer and Colbert don't get too angry is that they don't want to take a side officially. Because some of the things they try to say are actually legitimate, they don't want anyone to discount what they have to say on account of bias. I've been watching Rick for long enough to know that he's quite liberal-minded, but it's a lot easier to make fun of all politicians if you try to keep an open mind. Besides, their job is to make people notice politics and laugh at it. They aren't political analysts (Colbert's an actor, Mercer dropped out of high school to pursue comedy), they just make politics understandable for people without the patience to watch the news or question period.

And funny as heck.