Although not as exciting as the American presidential election this November, it looks like Canada will have a federal election mid-October thanks to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who thinks that Parliament isn’t working and is going to ask the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament.
Discuss.
Already, huh?
Are the conservatives really popular enough to pull this off?
Nope. If Harper’s Conservative Party does win again they’ll most likely be another minority government. The suspicion is that he’s calling this election early because he may lose up to four ridings that are currently up for byelections in Quebec and Ontario, strongholds of the centrist Liberal Party.
This’ll probably end up being much ado about nothing.
I expect the Conservatives will win again, but it won’t be a majority government. The only thing that might be interesting coming out of this is that Dion will probably be forced out of the leadership if he loses, which would probably be a net positive for the liberals. Maybe they’ll replace him with Ignatieff. At least I can hope, I was so horribly wrong about Dion back at the Liberal leadership convention.
Otherwise isn’t the Green Party finally going to get into the debates? I can’t wait to see that batshit crazy Elizabeth May go up against Harper - maybe she’ll call him worse than Neville Chamberlain again. Maybe they’ll win a seat this election, but I still doubt it.
Probably the only thing certain is that the NDP will continue its ignoble slide towards total irrelevance.
I found Dion spineless. He had many opportunities to overthrow the Conservative government on motion of confidence issues, but he even admitted on before the long weekend he didn’t do overthrow Harper’s government was because the polls at the time didn’t show he could win even a minority government.
Otherwise isn’t the Green Party finally going to get into the debates? I can’t wait to see that batshit crazy Elizabeth May go up against Harper - maybe she’ll call him worse than Neville Chamberlain again. Maybe they’ll win a seat this election, but I still doubt it.
If Parliament does come back into session, the ex-Liberal MP of West Vancouver will represent the Green Party. He’s Ms. May’s only chance of speaking at the televised political leaders debates.
British Columbia is probably the only place where the Green Party may have a chance of winning a city. Otherwise it’s pretty much a Liberal stronghold.
Probably the only thing certain is that the NDP will continue its ignoble slide towards total irrelevance.
But how can you go wrong with Jack Layton’s porn 'stache?
I actually do see a need for the left-wing NDP to balance out the centrists Liberals and right-wing Conservatives.
I think Harper also wants to get the election in before the possible Democratic win in the US which would weaken his position. In addition there are a number of scandals brewing, not least of which is the recent Lysteriosis outbreak, coming suspiciously just some months after a conservative-mandated change to food inspection procedures (food plants doing self-inspections, with federal inspectors mainly just checking company records). In additon he is surreptitiously cutting some 40 million to the arts which is going to annoy a lot of people.
The NDP is OK by me… I wouldn’t vote for them but they aren’t lunatics or anything.
I have a hard time guessing how this election is going to turn out. I’m not entirely pleased with Harper and he seems pretty cynical starting the election now. However Dion doesn’t strike me as being anything close to an effective leader. I think the Green party might win a lot of ground at the NDP’s expense.
I’ll probably end up voting based on what I think of the individual candidates in my riding. Given that my riding is currently NDP, I’ll probably be pretty tempted to vote for whoever seems most likely to unseat them.
Dion has been terrible. I think they should have gone with Bob Rae despite the problems he had when he was in power in Ontario. Ignatieff is not a pragmatist so I’m not a big fan of him.
It’s weird with countries where the head of government can dissolve parliament or call for a new election. In Sweden, the time between elections is a matter of (I believe constitutional) law.
Which has never lead to any problems ever, except that one time the blocs had 175 seats each for three years and the final tie-breaker was by lot.
Or that time when we had a government supported by 39 out of 349 MPs.
The Canadian conservative government actually introduced legislation to improve the system by having fixed election dates, but that sort of system will unfortunately not work when no party has sufficient seats to form a controlling block by itself, as is currently the case, since the other parties can effectively force the dissolution of the government, as is currently the case.
and lol@ whoever said a new election “already” - it’s amazing that a minority government lasted for this long. This minority government will actually be the longest-lasting in Canadian history.
The liberal party is not a “centrist” party either, by the way, other than in terms of being “between” the extreme socialist NDP party and the centrist conservative party. There’s virtually no position where the “conservative” party in Canada is not to the left of the U.S. Democratic Party (taxes, social spending, health care, etc.), for instance, to give some perspective.
Ah, we combine that law with negative parliamentarism, so it’s less of a problem with the dissolution of government. All you need to do is get enough parties to tolerate you. That sort of compromise isn’t really possible in a system like the English or Canadian, though.
The liberal party is not a “centrist” party either, by the way, other than in terms of being “between” the extreme socialist NDP party and the centrist conservative party. There’s virtually no position where the “conservative” party in Canada is not to the left of the U.S. Democratic Party (taxes, social spending, health care, etc.), for instance, to give some perspective.
If one defines “centrist” based on the US political spectrum, then no, the Liberals are not centrist, they’re far-left. Compared to many European countries though, the Liberals (especially with Paul Martin setting the budget) would be seen as centre-right.
By Canadian standards, though, the Liberals are more or less centre-left, with the NDP being on the far-left and the CPC being centre-right (much to the chagrin of many people here in Alberta, I might add, who are pissed that the conservatives had to move to the middle to appeal to voters in other provinces).
MarchHare’s got it about right.
If an election is called, it will be an unnecessary one and will probably do little to change the current make-up of Parliament.
My riding is represented by David “I’m a Liberal, ho ho, I mean Conservative!” Emerson. I’ll be waiting to see if he has the gumption to run for re-election here (because he’ll be wiped off the map if he does). I suspect he’ll not run again or try parachuting into a “safe” Conservative riding.
Yeah, that’s about right - agree with Creole Ned and Marchhare. The missing piece is the third most popular federal party, the Bloq Quebecois, which is also far-left and essentially a French Nationalist version of the NDP.
It’s true that Canada has never really had a right-wing party, and every attempt to create one (like the Reform Party), has been a failure.
Like the U.S., Canadian politics is also very regional – elections are essentially always decided by what happens in non-urban Ontario and Quebec.
The Bloc Quebecois are spoilers. They basically represent the pretty much static 30% portion of Quebecers who desire independence, and additionally by moderate Quebecers who wish to cast a protest vote. They don’t really occupy any coherent spot on the political spectrum so I think it’s wrong to call them “far-left”, and in fact were founded largely by former Progressive Conservative MPs.
As much as I’m fore Dion’s carbon tax (as someone who doesn’t have a car I would get a tax rebate), I don’t think it will help him at all in the upcoming election with the cost of gas, food and goods continues to go up.
The Bloc Quebecois actually always wins 40-50% of the Quebec vote.
They don’t really occupy any coherent spot on the political spectrum so I think it’s wrong to call them “far-left”, and in fact were founded largely by former Progressive Conservative MPs
They are actually very clearly far-left (they agree with the NDP on all significant issues, particularly social spending on matters like federal Child Care, environmental issues, desire for higher taxation, and increased government involvement in all aspects of life), and are even more socialist on some issues because of their French nationalism perspective.
The Progressive Conversative connection you state is also highly misleading – the BQ was formed by hardcore, left-wing French nationals such as Lucien Bouchard – for a brief period of time, those individuals were invited into the PC party by Brian Mulroney through various bribes and enticements, particularly the promise to pass what would become the Meech Lake Accord, but also the relocation of significant Federal Ministries and spending to Quebec.
The positive “spin” on that act by the Mulroney government is that they were trying to unify the country after Quebec failed to endorse the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982, and so he extended bribes and enticements to lure French nationalists into Federal politics (and to try to get the support to overthrow the Liberal Government, which had essentially governed almost uninterrupted since WW2). The negative “spin” is that Mulroney’s acts legitimized Quebec resentment that would have naturally subsided, and ultimately empowered many French separtists who were otherwise marginal figures, and by trying (and ultimately failing) to appease left-wing French nationalists, he fractured the Federal PC party into irrelevance.
I despise Dion. I’m not really happy with the Harper government but Dion gets under my skin on a very personal level.
Policy wise, as an Alberta resident, the Liberal carbon tax scheme is basically NEP v2.0. “You pay taxes that go into general federal coffers, taxes disproportionately levied at the oil sands, and mysteriously these taxes end up in Ontario.”
So, I’ll be voting Conservative, but reluctantly.