Just parliamentary politics, eh.

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I only know that their is a scandal with the current Liberal Party and that new elections will be held in January. I hope some of our friends from up North will be willing to expand.

I am not canadian but I am married to one and I do follow their politics loosely.

This is all centered around the Gomery Inquiry which was an independent commission to look into a patronage scandal involving the Liberal Party under the then leadership of Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The scam was that money was appropriated by parliament to promote Canada and all things canadian in the media and the like, kind of like a huge "I heart NY".

The problem is that the contracts for this were handed out to advertising firms that were heavily quebec based, where the Liberals have their power base, and headed by Liberal Party cronies. Contracts were handed to these companies in exchange for kickbacks to the Liberal Party. Not very tidy, you see.

The opposition, led by the Conservative Party, called a vote of confidence previously, about 18 months ago, that narrowly failed to unseat the government. This was before the Gomery Report was made public. All of its hearings and reports were done in secret and were not publicised until very recently. When it came out, the Liberal Party was heavily implicated and, thus, the confidence vote tabled yesterday by the opposition passed and the government fell.

As an aside, if you are not well-versed in westminster style parliamentary systems, the leader of the goverment is the member of the lower house ( the equivalent to the House of Representatives) who commands the confidence of a majority of the members of that chamber. There is no executive branch like in a republic like the US. The government/ cabinet officials are then selected by the leader from the pool of members of the lower house, invariably from his party or pool of political allies. When the government loses a vote of confidence, it shows that the leader and, by extension, his government no longer command a majority in the lower house. Now the representative of the queen in the commonwealth can ask another member of the house to form a government if they feel that member could command a majority. That is rare though. Usually what happens, as has done here, is that parliament is dissolved and new elections are called and a government is then formed from the new lineup in the lower house, post election.

Canadian politics is very stunted in my view. The canadian electorate is stuck in the grasp of post-modern, multi-cultural norms and are very timid electorally. Despite the fact that the Liberal Party has been dominant for years, with the exception of a short lived Conservative government in the 1980s and early 1990s, and has been very corrupt for a good bit of that time, the voters keep putting them back into power. They end up with things like same-sex marriage despite the electorate being massively against it and a runaway supreme court that makes the activist members of the US supreme court seem like the strictest of originalists and constructionists!!

The Westminster system is a poor system in my opinion that is democracy in its purest representation. There are no protections for minority interest enshrined in the design of the governing system. Be thankful that the framers of the US constitution were so wise in their design of the government.



Well I hope I have shed some light on it, in a hopefully not to disjointed manner. Any other questions?

non-confidence motion has been passed; the prime-minister will ask the governor-general to dissolve parliament today.

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

A bit confusing here.....

In one sentence you suggest that Gay Marraige rights were granted, in spite of the opposition of most Canadians. In a later sentence you suggest that there are no protections for minority rights in our system. Those two thoughts don seem to jibe.

Paul Martin spoke very clearly when he said that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all Canadians, and not just those as determined by the Harper led Conservatives.

The weakness in our system is the "First past the post" vote, where 35% to 40% of the vote is usually enough to guarantee an iron clad majority. With the very regionalized voting patterns, (BQ votes in Quebec, a tendency to vote Conservative in the prarie provinces), this is a bit less likely.

We're going to see another minority gov't, which will likely mean two general elections and two or three leadership conventions in 2006.

Peace,

Paul

When I say minority in this context, I am not referring to blacks or homosexuals or the like, the regular meaning of minority today. What I mean is that under this system, 50.1% of the population can enact things against the wishes of the other 49.9%. In the US, there are things like supermajorities for constitutional amendments and the Senate where each state gets two seats, regardless of population size, to temper the deeds of the House of Reps, where seats are divided based upon population. Under the Westminster system, these protections of the "political" minority don't exist.


Imagine that in 50 years that the US population is 400 million and that 70% of that is concentrated in just 5 states, NY, CA, NJ, IL, and FL ( simply five big people states that come to mind). If the US had no senate as it is now and just the House of Reps, then these five states could control everything that went on in the country and the other 45 states would effectively have no voice. With the system as it is in the US, these five states would need to convince the 45 lesser populated states of the merits of any issue they support before they could carry the day. A marvelous system it is! The least worst system of all the political systems in the world.

Thanks for posting. I would venture to say that most Americans don't have a clue how the Canadian government operates, not to mention our own.

So what exatly do you expect to happen? Which party will most likely get a crack at it, and what are the primary parties involved beyond Cons and Libs?

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

it's more complex than 'conservative' and 'liberal' in canada, though the parallels w/ the US are definintely there. some of the current parties, eg., are conglomerates of old ones.

the liberals and conservatives are near-even, right now (i think). the NDP (new democrat party) are strong but not a threat to federal leadership. interestingly, the bloq quebecois was the official opposition for a while and is a mjor player (and in many ways a great party to vote for, except that their are essentially a separatist party).

there are polls all over the place on every angle of this - i haven't checked, but i assume www.cbc.ca would be the best source.

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

True, which is why the last separatist vote in Quebec failed. The Clarity act was passed to require Quebect to provide a clear and obvious question the next time a separtist vote comes up. But at some point a majority has the right to make a decision, as long as that decision does not violate our Constitution, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and any laws that have been duly enacted under those documents.

Ultimately, because we are so regionalized, there really is little bullying, because there just isn't enough concentration in power in any one region. The Atlantic provinces seem to get short shrift, but in a balance of payments context, they do quite well. Ontario seems to get blamed for benefitting from gov't largess, but Ontario is the most populous, so we deserve it. Sort of.

On the other hand, all of the other provinces benefit from not having to put up with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Our National Health Care System is going to be a major focus in the next few elections. Do we want a two-tier system, do we join the U.S. in a for-profit model, do we stay aligned with every other western democracy in our delivery of Health Care?????

Quebec is a non-issue for most Canadians. We want our gov't to manage and protect the social programmes that we rely on, and we want our gov't to stand up to other gov'ts when neccessary, (read: the U.S. and softwood lumber). The "Tax and Spend" methodology of the New Democrats doesn't work. Ask anyone who lived under Bob Rae in Ontario. The "Strip and Privatize" model of the Conservative party doesn't work. Ask anyone who lived under Mike Harris. (Especially ask the residents of Walkerton, Ontario, and the family of Dudley George.) The left/center position of the Liberal Party is where most Canadians are comfortable, but we need some way of tempering their mandate, should they get one.

Stephen Harper scares the crap out of me. I'm voting Liberal.

Peace,

Paul

I am actually in Bermuda, being born here and grown up here. I went to university in Ontario and I married a bermudian girl who was born and raised in Toronto and moved here about ten years ago. And my mother is from NJ and I have US citizenship, so I have a finger in each pie so to speak.

Now when I said that I follow loosely, I meant it. I try to stay well-informed enough that I am current enough to sufficiently annoy my arch-Liberal canadian in-laws when the talk turns to politics, and it always does. They hate what I say when I point out many of the fallacies that they political leanings are built upon but they can't help but engage me! They arrive tomorrow for a one week visit. Yippee!!

Canadian politics have consolidated a bit in the last few years, The Liberal Party has always existed in modern times. The present day Conservative Party is an amalgam of the old Progressive Conservative party - that of Brian Mulrooney who was PM in the 80s- and the Reform Party, whose base was out on the prairies out west and one or two other smaller parties, I think. On the far left you have the New Democratic Party. The NDP are the ones who kept Paul Martin's government alive at the last confidence vote after they went into a coalition with the minority Liberals after the Libs tailored their budget to suit the desires of the NDP to increase taxes and welfare spending. Anything more is beyond my recollection.

My intuition is that the Conservatives will form the next government, with an outright political majority I hope. I lean that way, but aside from that I hope the canadian electorate will finally come to their senses and punish the Libs for their sleaze and their taking the electorate for granted for so so long. They could do with some time on the opposition benches. Having said that, the Conservatives and their leader Stephen Harper always find a way to shoot themselves in the foot, many times each election!! Harper falls into the trap of playing the campaign game that the Libs want him to play, getting caught up in small petty matters that distract him from the big issues. He needs to stay on message and present the Conservative ideas and policies and sell them. Leave the Libs to try and defend their atrocious record and stay out of the mud-slinging. Ignore it. Sell the Conservative Party instead of trying to demonize the Libs. Ignore them. The voters will, I hope, see the light.

You're in Bermuda and you're complaining about the Canadian incumbents and electorate?? Dude!

Who is this?

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Having grown up in the US and now living in Canada, I'm still learning about the Canadian political system. Here's some of my thoughts:

- I *love* the fact that there is only going to be a 2 month span for the election. I can't stand it in the US when the election advertising starts 2 years out from the next federal election.

- I used to dislike the parliamentary system with the "Official Opposition" party and such, but now I've come to see how important it is. Without a strong opposition party, then the ruling party has too much leeway to take advantage of things. I wonder if "ad-scam" would have even happened if there had been a stronger opposition.

- There's definitely not enough checks and balances in the system when there is a majority government. The minority situation tends to make the ruling party a bit more careful, I think.

- I think it's going to be quite a fight over the next 2 months, but we'll likely end up with another minority government. Not the end of the world.

- I get to vote for the first time since I just became a Canadian citizen. Yippee! :)

Dawn

Excellent information in this thread. It is many time more informative than everything in the mainstream American press put together.

Thanks.

Well with my wife coming from there, and with the Bermuda government flirting with independence from Britain ( despite only 16% in a recent poll supporting it), Canada remains a possible home in the future. I don't want it to go to hell in a handbasket. Canada used to be a strong and valued member of the western alliance. Now with their post-modernist bent and their total focus on maintaining the welfare state, they are endangering their position in the global pecking order. The disatrous state of their military and the rank anti-american attitude that pervades much of canadian society are marginalizing the great influence they had in the mid to latter 20 century. They may not agree with what the US does all the time but they need it a lot more than the US needs them. It is not wise to antagonize them too much. I am not trying to start any polemics here, but just state the true state of things. Bermuda is the same. We are heavily dependent on the US and their tax policy in our role as a center of offshore insurance. They could change one or two laws and obliterate the Bermuda economy overnight! We may not agree with what they do, but their is precious little we can do about it, and we must use what little influence we have sparingly and wisely, lest we jeopardize it. Canada is in a similar, though less stark predicament.

Just because Canadians disagreed with the War in Iraq, doesn't mean we are anti-American. We ARE in Afghanistan.

Canadians expect the U.S. to uphold their end of NAFTA. So far with the softwood lumber issue, the U.S. is not. There was a water diversion scheme that went ahead this year. It drained a lake in the U.S. but the water will contaminate Canadian waters. The U.S. will do as it pleases.

We've got some mouthpiece politicians, (Carolyn Parrish, for one), who come across as as anti-American, but for the most part, we are not. We are the largest trading partner of the U.S., we share the worlds longest undefended border. The only time it came to international gunplay, we won. When the U.S. decided it was unsafe to land planes in the U.S. (9/11/2001), it was considered safe to land them in Canada. While we don't expect the U.S. to hold us in the same stature that they hold themselves, we do expect to be treat with the respect we deserve and and earned.

The U.S. does NOT respect Canadian sovereignty in arctic waters. The U.S. routinely uses artctic routes for your nuclear sub fleet.

GWB alledgedly has a tendency to treat disagreement with disloyalty. Canadians as a people and as a nation do NOT walk lock-step with GWB, the U.S., or any other nation.

Peace,

Paul

"My intuition is that the Conservatives will form the next government, with an outright political majority "

Ain't gonna happen. The Conservatives might get a minority government, but they'll be gone after the first vote of non confidence. If I was a betting man I'd still predict a Liberal minority again. Either way, there will be a lot of pressure for Paul Martin to resign as leader of the Liberal Party, which IMO, would be a very good thing for both the Liberal Party and the country.

The problem the Conservatives have is the image in the east of their leader Stephen Harper as an "Alberta redneck". The new Conservative Party is in reality mostly a regional party with most of it's support in Alberta. This is essentially the Reform Party under a new name.

If the Conservatives want national support they're going to have to refrain from electing right wing regional western leaders and find somebody with more mainstream appeal in Ontario as the key to winning any election in Canada is who ever wins Ontario.

Granted, I guess I was a little sweeping in my characterization of canadian opinions. My views are colored by what I see and hear when I am in southern Ontario and Toronto. In the my time there I have rarely heard anyone express even indifference to the US and its policies. Outright support is non-existent in the circles I travel in when there. Most consider GWB an absolute moron and whether prople disagree or vehemently disagree with his policies, they must concede that he is not a moron. Idiots and morons do not rise to the most powerful political office in the world. There are too many checks along the way to weed them out.



"While we don't expect the U.S. to hold us in the same stature that they hold themselves, we do expect to be treat with the respect we deserve and and earned. "

I agree with this. My point was that the account balance on respect earned has not been topped up a whole lot recently, rightly or wrongly from each point of view, compared to historically. You can only lived on long-ago earned respect for so long before it is spent and used up.

As for being in Afghanistan, that is appreciated and respected. Without having quick access to current and past troop levels, I would venture that the Canada of thirty years ago would have wanted to and been able to commit far greater numbers than they have in this recent effort. The military has suffered too many cutbacks in recent times for Canada to be taken seriously in these matters before too long. The whole brouhaha over the DART team being deployed for the Tsunami and earthquakes demonstrates what I mean. Here they have a very capable and valuable team that could have contributed greatly to immediate relief efforts. But arguing for weeks on how and when they would be deployed and then not having the lift capacity to get them anywhere and balking at the cost of chartered planes that skyrocketed when demand went up following and because of the disasters is downright farcical and embarrassing!!

"Most consider GWB an absolute moron and whether prople disagree or vehemently disagree with his policies, they must concede that he is not a moron. Idiots and morons do not rise to the most powerful political office in the world."

Relatively speaking. I think people have come to expect a certain level of eloquence and a basic command of the native language out of the oval office. It's understandable how he aquired this reputation, regardless of his intelligence level. As an American, it can be embarrassing at times.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

That is true, I'll admit. It can be a little painful to watch sometimes. But as long as he is taking on and focusing on matters of great importance and global significance, I'll forgive the odd misstep.

To be fair, it was equally painful watching Clinton wag his finger in our faces, lying about his non-affair and Reagan admitting that he traded arms to Iran without his brain registering the act. Which is worse, really, a suave liar or an inarticulate "moron"?

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

"They end up with things like same-sex marriage despite the electorate being massively against it ..."

Where on Earth did you get that statistic? I'm afraid that this is just not true. And the chances of the Conservatives getting a minority gov't are about as slim as me qualifying for Kona. Polls just released today show that the Cons. have 7% support in Quebec and that just isn't going to get the job done. Therre are a huge number of seats up for grabs in Quebec and the battle there is between the Libs and the Bloc.

Apparently you have forgotten the rather hideous record of the Progressive Cons. under Brian Mulroney. Talk about corruption! Why do you think they went from the ruling party to having only a handful of seats and, in fact, dropping off the political landscape entirely for a number of years. They made a desparate attempt to regain relavence by joining the Reform cum Canadian Alliance cum Conservative party and they are still struggling East of the prairies. As long as they hold on to the original Reform extreme right wing agenda, they are done. They will never have more than regional support and Mr. Harper frightens the hell out of most of us (he makes Pres. Bush look like a left wing environmentalist with homosexual tendencies).

Like it or not with the Bloc in Quebec and the Conservatives out West, the Liberals are the only truly national party that we have. All they have to do is sit back and watch the rest of them self-destruct and they will get in again, ableit in a minority position I expect.

Food for thought,

robert