Political crisis in Canada

[Annihilator]

in before lolCanadianPolitics

I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on this yet.

Canada's Finance minister has presented last week his mini-budget. The opposition parties have all risen in outrage, saying it brings nothing to help Canada face the worldwide economic crisis.

Out of this outrage came an alliance. The three opposition parties have signed this week a deal to form a coalition government.


To those not from Canada, this might not mean much, so let's explain how this whole government thing works.

The country, during each election, is divided in a certain amount of counties. Major parties send candidates in each of those counties. Citizens from those counties then vote for the candidates of their choice, and the leading candidate in each county becomes an elected member of Parliament, and wins a seat in the Chamber of Commons. The leader of the party with the most seats becomes Prime Minister.

That government is however regularly submitted to confidence votes. A confidence vote is a way for elected members of Parliament to express whether they support the government and its actions or not. If a majority of votes are cast against the government during a confidence vote, then the Prime minister has to go to the Governor General and ask her (governor generals are always women, since they represent the Queen) to dissolve the parliament. At that time, the governor general usually calls for a new election, but she may also ask the opposing parties if they would like to form a new government together, if they have the approval of the majority of the chamber of commons. This measure is very rarely used, and on the canadian federal level, hasn't been seen since the era of World War I.

Usually this whole confidence vote thing isn't an issue, since the leading party has more often than not a majority of seats in the Chamber of commons, and its representatives very rarely vote against their own party, ensuring a smooth governing session while the government is in place.

However, Canada is currently lead by a minority government. This means that the leading party does not have a majority of seats, and must therefore seek the votes of members of the opposing parties in order to stay in power.

This gives quite a bit of weight to the other parties. They can then ask for modifications, or additions to a budget for example in order for the minority government to earn their support.



The crisis I am referring to has emerged when all three opposing parties have decided, and announced publicly, that they would all vote against the current government in the next confidence vote, because they say that the leading party is not addressing the needs of its people with its latest mini-budget. Those three parties have signed an agreement to form a coalition government, by uniting to overthrow the current government with their majority of votes.

In response to that, the Prime minister used his right to delay the confidence vote by a week, and is now asking the governor general to completely suspend the chamber of commons until the final budget is brought out, at the end of January, in order to avoid that confidence vote for another two months.


Both sides are now in a public opinion war.

The leading party is saying that the coalition formed of the three opposition parties is illegitimate, because the Canadian people did not give them the right to band together. In addition, one of the opposition party, the Bloc Québécois, has historically been a party meant to represent the separatist movement of Quebec. As such, the Prime Minister claims that any alliance with a separatist party to form a new government is against the interests of Canada, and has no place leading our country.


On the other side, the opposition parties claim that what they are doing is expressing democracy at its highest level, by letting the majority (all three parties combined) represent the interests of its people. They say that they do so in good will, in the spirit of consensus and cooperation, in order to face the economical crisis that the current government fails to address. They also remind the Prime minister that his government has managed to survive numerous confidence votes by obtaining the support of the Bloc Québécois in the past, and that he is a hypocrite to use their votes when it suits him, and then calls the coalition illegitimate for doing the same now that the tides have turned. They also say that the suspension of the Chamber of Commons until the end of January would be disastrous, and would remove two precious months of work from elected representatives that could be used to bring forth measures to stimulate the economy.


On the third side... the Bloc Québécois reminded that they signed an agreement with the coalition not to overthrow the coalition government for 18 months at minimum, bringing some much needed political stability. They also say that they represent the best interests of Quebec, and those interests are better served with the coalition in power than with a minority government that doesn't address the needs of its people.





I tried as much as possible to keep this informational, as free of any kind of bias or favoritism.

Excuse my crappy english ^^;

What do you guys think?


And please keep this civil

[Seraph]

And please keep this civil

I was going to joke and ask if you guys had run out of beer and donuts, but now I won't.

>_>

[Tristam]

wow, that's actually pretty interesting (if complicated) and your english is fine.

What happens if the gov't is overthrown? Who gets executive power? Also do you personally believe the other parties are acting in good faith as opposed to simply ousting the reigning party and fighting over the empty space?

It was my understanding that the current gov't in Canada is leaning towards social conservatism, would the overthrow change that trend at all or am I off base?

[Kaylia]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread on this yet.

Current situation is so ridiculous I don't give a shit about it. I want to care, but when politics turn into a giant popularity contest, I'm not sure how to deal with it. This coallition is retarded, and just a poor excuse to get back the vote they lost. Harper could probably do more as well and try to work with other a bit more too.


And fuck the Bloc . Any party should be forced to present deputee everywhere in Canada. Their existance make political stability almost impossible in Canada.

[Elesirdur]

I think there was a thread from earlier this week regarding the coalition accord, but it's probably on page 3 now.

As a staunch Liberal supporter, I'm in favour of a left-wing coalition government to take over from Harper's Conservatives. Not to mention that I was one of the early organizers of the Stephane Dion leadership campaign in BC, so you can see my preference there too.

Combined, the opposition parties did get more popular votes (as well as seats in the house) than the CPC so I believe the coalition does have a justified mandate to take over Government should they wish to join forces. What I think the big historical outcome of this event is how the Governor-General handles this situation and how she chooses to exercise her power and what effect that choice will have on the status of Government. For the last 100 or so GG's have been very reluctant to do anything that may affect the course of Parliament's business, but right now Michael Jean has no choice but to affect the outcome regardless of what option she chooses.

I'm hoping to hear that the GG has denied Harper's request to porogate Parliament and that we will have a vote of non-confidence on the house this following Monday.

[Correction]

http://i35.tinypic.com/206dg8j.jpg

[Thoronas]

Edit: Beaten to the punch by Elesirdur. Oh well.

I would really like to see the conservatives taken down. If only because it would destroy the political career of Stephen Harper. I'm pissed that he pulled this bullshit so soon after an election. He could have done anything short of what he did and ruled Canada for at least 3 years while the Liberals tried to climb out of near bankruptcy. Instead he pulls this crap and now the other parties are unified against him.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the coalition in the long term. This could be the beginning of a 2.5 party system in Canada.

[Seraph]

What surprises me is that besides BG, I haven't heard anything about this on the local or national news in the states.

The potential Obama position picks are apparently more important. /eyeroll


Edit: Finally saw it mentioned on Google News.

[Correction]

What surprises me is that besides BG, I haven't heard anything about this on the local or national news in the states.

The potential Obama position picks are apparently more important. /eyeroll

Is there really anything at stake for Americans regardless of who is in power in Canada?

Meanwhile, the Obama picks...

[Elesirdur]

What happens if the gov't is overthrown? Who gets executive power? Also do you personally believe the other parties are acting in good faith as opposed to simply ousting the reigning party and fighting over the empty space?

If the Government is "overthrown" as you say and are defeated on a motion of non-confidence, then the PM is bound to go to the Governor General (GG) and notify her that he has lost the confidence of the house and is resigning as head of government. Then the leader of the party or coalition who has the plurality of seats in the house will go to the GG and request to form government.

In other circumstances, a Government being defeated on a motion of non-confidence would result in the former PM asking the GG to end the session of Parliament and to call and election. However, because the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc have signed a coalition accord stating that they would not ask the GG to call an election and would request her to give the power to govern to them, then the GG would ascent to the leader of the coalition to form Government for the rest of the Parliamentary term.

The term "executive power" has a slightly different meaning in Canada than it does in the US since the executive (Government and Cabinet) are drawn from the legislative branch and only in extremely rare cases can an individula who is not a sitting member of Parliament be sworn in as a Cabinet Minister (I think it's happend like once). However, on a technical note the power to assign who can form the executive is left to our head of state in Canada, the Governor General.

It was my understanding that the current gov't in Canada is leaning towards social conservatism, would the overthrow change that trend at all or am I off base?

The coalition would be more of a social-democratic/liberal Government than the CPC (Conservative Party of Canada, the current gov't) and there would be chages in policy from the CPC's social-conservative agenda. However, the CPC is pretty much the same as the "ultra left-wing" Democratic party in the US whereas the Liberals, being the centrist party in Canada, are even further to the left of the Dem's. The NDP are the worker's left-wing socialist(ish) party and the Bloc just does whatever it wants to improve the position of Quebec.

[Seraph]

This seems kinda soap opera like to me, more so than the usual drama between Dems and Reps. How very interesting...

[Elesirdur]

Is there really anything at stake for Americans regardless of who is in power in Canada?

Meanwhile, the Obama picks...

It is a pretty internal thing. Foreign policy is unlikely to change radically, except for a greater push to pull more and more Canadian troops out of Afghanistan (I think our boys and girls have been there quite long enough personally, and at a very high troop deployment rate considering the small size of the Canadian Army). Free trade will continue and life will essentially go on as normal for most Canadians.

But to counter your question, does it make any difference who forms government in France, Germany, or Japan to the average American? Not in the least, and for the average Frenchman, Doichlander, Nipponese, or Canadian who gets to be in Obama's cabinet won't affect their day to day lives beyond talking about the news.

[Olo401]

Have they said anything about whether the GG will grant Harper authority to operate the government (make expenditures, appoint senators, etc.) or if he's being limited until parliament is reconvened? I didn't see anything on the DailyKos liveblog yet about it..

[Shinryusan]

Quite honestly, noone outside of Canada really thinks this is such a big deal. Government by coalition is pretty much common practice in places like Italy, Greece, and I believe Israel, but it's hilarious to see the state some people are getting whipped into up here. I regularly hear people talking about a "coup" and "overthrowing the lawful democratic government by force", which makes me lol heartily. This is a lawful and clearly constitutional political move by the left wing parties. All it is, really, is an agreement by the 3 largest parties of the opposition to vote together in parliament, giving them a 62% majority in the house. That's it.

Edit: Wait, a sec, Governor Generals are always women? WTF? That's not even remotely true. There's only ever been three women GGs. We just happen to have had 2 in a row.

[Elesirdur]

Have they said anything about whether the GG will grant Harper authority to operate the government (make expenditures, appoint senators, etc.) or if he's being limited until parliament is seated? I didn't see anything on the DailyKos liveblog yet about it..

I don't believe the GG has the authority to do that. Major capital expenses would require approval of the House, and it is the GG who actually appoints Senators and Supreme Court Justices - but does so on advice of the PM. In a political crisis like this where the future of a Government is uncertain, I would find it highly unlikely (and wholly inappropriate) for a GG to approve appointment-based positions from a PM's recommendation.

[Elesirdur]

Edit: Wait, a sec, Governor Generals are always women? WTF? That's not even remotely true. There's only ever been three women GGs. We just happen to have had 2 in a row.

Where did you pick that up in the thread? I may have used "her" to refer to the GG in my posts but that's because it's accurate in this case and I hate using "him/her" or "his or hers" in writing.

[The Stig]

For some reason I'm instantly reminded of that South Park episode about the internet money issue when I read the topic title.

[Thoronas]

Goddammit. I was hoping this wouldn't be the outcome. I really really was

[Shinryusan]

(governor generals are always women, since they represent the Queen)

not you, him.

[Olo401]

So now comes the moment of truth for Stephen Harper.. can he truly live up to the same standards that the Bush Republicans set using Rove's boogeyman playbook? I guess it depends how well he plays this separatist angle against Dion and Layton, and how they respond to it.

Personally, I hope the libs ditch Dion and get someone in there who knows how to kick some ass.