The fajrdrako summary of recent Canadian political events...

[fajrdrako]

nina_ds asked me what was going on in Canada and I answered her, then decided to repost it here in case anyone else is curious. After all, it's not every day something happens in Canadian politics that is actually interesting. Sit-up-and-take-notice interesting.

Here's my quick-simple version of events, and remember that (a) I ignore political news as much as I possibly can, so I'm hardly an expert on any of it, and (b) I am not unbiased. It is, after all, the unfolding history of my country that's going on here. Commentary and correction from my more politcally-astute friends is welcome.

1. We had a federal election in October, possibly the most boring election ever held anywhere. The Conservatives ended up with enough seats in Parliament to from the Government, with their leader, Steven Harper, as Prime Minister. Again.
   
   
2. Steven Harper announced the new Budget last week. It was so stupid and useless that it was about to trigger a non-confidence motion in Parliament. Significant details: it didn't address the Recession, which is on everyone's mind, and Harper tried to cut funding to political parties.
   
   
3. Here's where the tricky and unusual bit comes. Usually a vote of non-confidence means a new election. But we just had a big, expensive (and did I mention boring?) election in October. So instead of that, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party decided to join together in what they called the Coalition. There are more Conservative seats in Parliament than either NDP or Liberal, but put the Liberals and the NDP together and they have a party with enough seats to hold power. The Bloc Quebecois (which is most of the remainder of Parliament) agreed to support this amalgamation.
   
   This move would topple Harper as PM and make Liberal Leader Stephane Dion the new Prime Minister.
   
   With me so far?
   
   
4. On Wednesday, the evening before this was going to happen, Harper appeared on television to beg the people of Canada to keep him as PM because, well, anything else was unCanadian. (He used the word 'illegal' and hinted at the word 'treasonous'.)
   
   
5. The next morning, Harper went to Governor-General Michaelle Jean and asked her to suspend Parliament - because if Parliament can't sit, they can't form the Coalition government and can't boot him out of power.
   
   
6. The Governor-General agreed to this and Parliament is prorogued, which is the technical word for the suspension. Parliament can now not sit until the end of January. Till then, we technically have a government in power, the Conservatives, but nobody can do anything.
   
   
7. Harper is now writing another, better Budget speech to present at the end of January, hoping it won't get him ousted.

Comments

[catslash.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Thanks for this; I was wondering what was going on, but didn't know where to find a quick summary. That is some crazytimes.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Isn't the Governor-General basically the British crown's representative in Canada? Heh... how cool would it be if you guys threw some tea in a harbor and started carrying signs that said, "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny"?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

put the Liberal and NDP together and they have a party with a majority.

No they don't, which is part of the problem. The Liberals have 77 seats and the NDP have 37, which together is still 29 seats fewer than the 143 CPC seats. This is why the Bloc had to sign off on the deal, because the Coalition needs their 49 seats to outvote the Conservatives.

I suspect if the Lib + NDP total was 144 or higher, the GG might have signed off on the coalition government, especially if "or higher" exceeded 155 seats. In fact, I wonder if in the case where Lib+NDP = 155+ we might not have seen a Lib+NDP government right off the bat.

[maaseru.livejournal.com]

Good summary. My only comment would be re #1, The Conservatives really only had 38% of the votes, giving them only a minority government. 62% of the rest of us split votes between the other parties, and that's why Harper is so vulnerable. Too bad he's so arrogant that he didn't even care what the reaction would be to his nasty, picayune attack on the irritants in his life. If he'd brought even one good economic measure out in that juvenile package of nonsense, none of this would have happened.

[gillo]

That's roughly what I thought was happening. A major constitutional crisis, IOW, but one relying on inaction by the majority. I have to say that I do not approve of the actions of the G-G, but I can see she's in a tricky position. Harper appears to be a dickhead.

I'm assuming "Conservative" means somewhere to the right of Barack Obama, or at least in his vicinity? But adhering to Thatcherite monetarist values. Not fun, and this is not a moment to do nothing. Good luck with that.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

... Harper tried to cut funding to all the other political parties.

Actually, no. The original proposal, as specified, was to cut taxpayer funding to all political parties, including the Conservatives themselves. The intent of the proposal was considerably more even-handed than one may think. I should note that such a proposal has the considerable drawback of partly "Americanizing" the Canadian political landscape (if you aren't rich or have a lot of supporters, you usually aren't allowed to be on the ballot in most of the US). [However, we Canucks do not have the restrictive "sore loser" laws enacted in most U.S. states that seem so clearly un-democratic.]

If such a proposal had been raised during the election campaign, especially after the first stock market crash in late September, I would have been decidedly more sympathetic. The sheer crassness of the proposal now is in its timing; Reform/Tories have paid off their debts, but the Liberals and the NDP are rather badly mired in debt since the last election in mid-October. [Why can't the NDP, in particular, be more fiscally responsible? They have the backing of large organizations, such as several trade unions.] As I have said elsewhere (http://duncanmac.livejournal.com/8556.html), trusting a government handout of any kind can leave you up the proverbial creek without any means of propulsion when said government decides to cut funding for whatever reason it chooses.

I am also offended at the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc for their sheer crassness. Again, not a peep about such a "coalition" was raised during the election; it took a threat to cut taxpayer funding to them that caused them to unite now.

An apt comment I have seen elsewhere is that the politicians on Parliament Hill are behaving "like five-year-olds in the grip of a tantrum." Unfortunately, many Canadians are not aware of all the details, leading to results like this poll (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/12/04/parliament-poll.html).

The upshot of it is that nothing will be done about the economic mess till Parliament returns on Jan. 26. Good shot, Mr. Harper. :-(

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

Wow. I knew that Stephen Harper was a bit of a dick, but deciding to shut down Canadian national government until the end of January while the news is getting a little bit more bleaker every day? Fail. Complete and utter fail.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

This American notes that this situation reminds her of when Newt Gingrich (who is probably a good buddy of Harper's) helped instigate a shutdown of our federal government. Good luck to you all.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

put the Liberals and the NDP together and they have a party with enough seats to hold power. The Bloc Quebecois (which is most of the remainder of Parliament) agreed to support this amalgamation.

This move would topple Harper as PM

I want to make sure I understand this - I know that you vote for members of parliament, and those members are each part of a party, and the biggest one of those gets to put up the Prime Minister and they basically get to rule the government? (I realize I'm not using technically accurate language here.) But, without an election, the parties in parliament can re-organize themselves and change the government, including the prime minister?

And parliament can be suspended! Tricksy. Not that things like that don't happen here, but I'm just as surprised when they do. Until a few years ago I had no idea it was legal or possible to *shut down* the federal government or a state government for a budget protest.

Well may they say 'God Save the Queen...'

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

So... is your Governor General allowed to sack the Prime Minister if she wants to? Not that I would normally advocate such a move of course, but still...?

Sorry, all this makes me feel very Aussie, especially since I just saw 'Keating! The Musical' this week, featuring the ghost of Gough Whitlam.

Catherine