So, I'm guessing that most of you have heard by now that the federal government may be defeated on the first opposition day over the economic update. The Conservatives are busy spinning their spin, trying to convince anyone who will listen that the opposition parties are being undemocratic and that all this is a "power grab" by "backroom politicians".
For several reasons I believe that Harper and the Conservatives at the ones being undemocratic.
1) The Canadian voters gave the Conservatives a minority government. Not a majority. They need to stop ruling like they have a majority, and respect the fact that almost 2/3 of candians who voted did NOT vote for the conservatives and did not chose Harper to be the prime minister.
2) At the first sign that Harper did something wrong, what does he do? He cancels opposition day so that the opposition doesn't have the opportunity to get their message across. How is this democratic? Not letting the people voted in by Canadians have their turn to speak?
3) Canada is NOT a two party system. There are checks and balances like the one being saught by the Liberals and the NDP to make sure that Minority governments rule on behalf of the country, not out of self interest.
4) This is not unprecedented. The Liberals and NDP formed a coalition government in Ontario in the 1980s to defeat the minority conservatives. The coalition served for a year and then called an election at a specified date which the liberals went on to win and practically destroy the conservatives in Ontario. (Obviously in that case the Liberal and NDP coalition pleased the Ontario public).
5) This kind of thing happens pretty frequently in European countries that aren't two party systems, including: Norway, Sweeden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Turkey, and Israel.
Top this off with the fact that the Conservatives failed miserably to provide any much needed economic stimulus to help protect Canadian Jobs. I understand that they are saying "We don't know where to spend it yet, so wait until March". But is that realistic? If we wait until March the Auto industry in Canada could be virtually destroyed as the american package will come much quicker and you can be guaranteed that there will be clauses for job protection and creation in the US. What I believe Canada should have done (and likely will do with a Liberal/NDP coalition government) is annouce an $X billion stimulus package with the details to be worked out over the coming weeks.
As for the public funding of political parties - the issue the conservatives are trying to make this about - the issue that even after it was removed from the economic statement failed to turn around the momentum of the Liberals/NDP.
1) Obviously this wasn't the issue that upset the liberals and NDP the most since even after it was removed, they are still going full steam ahead.
2) In my opinion is a little undemocratic. Yes, taxpayers shouldn't have to pay party subsides, but to announce overnight that these subsidies are going to be removed without giving the parties that rely on them time to recover financially? It is a power grab, pure and simple. The conservatives have made it no secret that it is their ambition to ruin the Liberal Party.
3) I don't believe that this issue would have even ruined the liberals. I bet from that one day alone (after the economic update was released), the Liberals probably recieved upwards of half a million in political donations from Liberals (myself included) that got scared and figured that it was time to support their party more.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
My thoughts on the Economic Update and PM Harpers Lack of Respect
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I agree with you.
What concerns me (and I'm sure other Canadians) is that if Harper is willing to do these sort of underhanded and some could argue unfair things with a MINORITY government, I'd be scared if he ever managed to trick the public into giving him a MAJORITY.
I'm sad that people judged Dion so harshly without actually listening to his ideas. I thought he had some good ones once I took the time to read the platforms. I don't support the NDP, but I respect Jack Layton.
The only tid bit I will say is that I do not think coalition governments should be allowed to take power without going to an election first. It may be true that 2/3 of Canadians did not vote for Harper, but they did not vote for a coalition either.
I agree with NB. A coalition government should not be allowed to take power without an election first.
It also needs to be considered that the Tories have 19 more seats now than they had in the 2006 election, so their support is actually growing. To switch to a coalition government without input from the Canadian voters would be unfair.
Another unwanted election will have much the same result and the won't solve anything other than costing Canadians another $300 million.
If anything were to change it would be if the Liberals and NDP officially ran as a Coalition and removed third place candidates reducing vote splitting. If this were to happen the liberal would win 24 more seats from the conservatives giving them 101 seats, the NDP would win 5 more seats giving them 42 seats. This would take 29 seats away from the conservatives leaving them with 114 seats to the coalitions 143. Still not a majority. This is purely speculation. Some liberals might vote conservative over NDP, but I suspect most people leaning that way would have already gone there. Further, it assumes that the Conservatives have not lost any support due to the shananigans in the last week... particularly in their alienation of quebec. I suspect that they are in the process of killing the quebec wing meaning they could have up to 10 fewer seats which could go liberal or Bloq. Likely not NDP as the NDP have a shallow base in Quebec. Anywho, 10 seats isn't enough for a majority in either case.
Personally, I don't really care if a coalition government is formed because I cannot stand Harper and his idiotic cronies - however, I'm not sure if I would feel the same if the Green Party were involved in this coalition. I think at some point down the line ideologies of a particular party become compromised...and that doesn't really sit ok with me.
burger, the Greens have officially supported the coalition, but will not have members in it because they don't have any seats (I so wish May had won. I'm not sure why May didn't decide to run again in her London Riding. she would have had a better chance of winning it.
Post a Comment