OMG Canada IS GOING CRAZY

[SinbadEV]

So, you Americans probably don't know anything about this so I'll start with a primer.

In Canada we have a The Crown, which is the Queen of England who has appointed a representative called the "Governor General" who overtly holds veto over all decisions but really only holds ceremonial power.

At the federal level we have the Senate who have ceremonial power but are appointed by the Prime Minister so have to basically listen to him or risk getting booted out.

Then we have the Parliament itself. Imagine that for every electoral vote in the USA system an actual person was sent to Washington (called a Member of Parliament) and the leader of the party with the most of these people is the Leader of the country.

So a couple weeks ago we had an election, we got a party called the Conservative Party in power with more MPs then any other party but less then 50% of the total MPs.

Then, our leader releases a budget that did nothing to stimulate our economy to stave of recession and cutting pretty much all of the funding to the other parties.

SO! After this, the other three parties with the other %55 of the power decided to form a coalition against the ruling party, effectively agreeing to act as one party... which would give THEM more MPs and therefore make the leader of their coalition the leader of the country... effectively a political coup.

Okay, so the current Prime Minister took back the budget and said he'd fix it and come back on January with another one that won't be quite as stupid.

BUT NOW! this coalition is like, "Well, we should do this anyways because Steven Harper is an idiot and is going to run this country into the crapper."

However, the leader of this new Party is going to change soon... again imagine that when the ruling party (for example the Republicans) had their presidential primaries back in February, John McCain would immediately have been president until the election gave the Democrats power... so anyways... the current leader of the Liberals is not going to run in the party leadership conference early next year so this coalition (and therefore the country) will be lead by some guy chosen by a party that had a quarter of the votes in the last election.


Anyways. Discuss.

[SwiftSpear]

Meh, a coalition government only works as long as all the member parties are still on board. And to topple the coalition the conservatives only need any 1 of the 3 other party to vote their way.

It's strange that it turned out this way, but not exactly astonishing.

[lurker]

Then we have the Parliament itself. Imagine that for every electoral vote in the USA system an actual person was sent to Washington (called a Member of Parliament) and the leader of the party with the most of these people is the Leader of the country.

Simpler than that, really. Take our system, take away the power of and voting for the Senate, get rid of the entire insane presidential election system, and make the Speaker of the House be President.

[Pxtl]

Mark my words, this will be the end of the Liberal party. The Cons are brilliant, evil geniuses. Which sucks, imho.

Look at it. The Canadian populace are going to be skeptical of the legitimacy of the new government, particularly since it's tied to Layton and the Bloc. Personally, I think this is how things _should_ be run in the case of a minority government (the biggest coalition should get the PM/Cabinet by default), but that doesn't matter to most Canadians. They just think "Harper won, WTF?".

Now, this questionabily legit government is going to be stuffing money into industrialists' pockets to keep jobs afloat while the economy struggles. Also, when Dion steps down, the two chief replacements? Ignatieff and Rae. If the NDP gets a say (and they might - they're needed for the coalition) it'll be Rae.

And Rae was in charge of Ontario during the last recession, and most Ontarians blame him for the hard times. His government will be _very_ unpopular, and will get blamed for every single thing that goes wrong.

The Liberal Party will not survive this.

This sucks. I want Chretien back. He was corrupt and nasty, but he provided real leadership.

[SinbadEV]

This sucks. I want Chretien back. He was corrupt and nasty, but he provided real leadership.

Harper's biggest fault in my opinion has always been an inability to work with the minority parties to push policy, he wants Presidential style power and it's just not going to happen. The majority of those who voted Conservative would be happy if Harper had made small concessions to the NDP or Liberals in order to push his major agenda. I don't know if this is the Liberal media propaganda I've absorbed talking but, Harper might be a good party leader but he's not a good team player and our current government will not get anything done unless he starts treating all MPs in parliament as a whole as part of his team instead of acting like his cabinet are the only people who matter.

At the very least the coalition has proved to Harper that his grasp on power is tenuous at best... and worst case scenario we have another election in a few months.

[Peet]

Bai parliament! bai bai democracy!

[Dragon45]

awww, america jr. needs his diaper changed again it's smelling bad

[Jasper1984]

In Europe there seem to be a bunch of cases where people are converted working to working part-time or are sacked 'temporarally' with some compensation from the government. This way people still have money and jobs, keeps some circulation going, but industry isn't unduely subsidized. Are there similar arrangements (being considered) in America and Canada?

[SwiftSpear]

In Europe there seem to be a bunch of cases where people are converted working to working part-time or are sacked 'temporarally' with some compensation from the government. This way people still have money and jobs, keeps some circulation going, but industry isn't unduely subsidized. Are there similar arrangements (being considered) in America and Canada?

I don't think so. Unemployment is being seen as the #1 point of attack. Plus, our UI is pretty pitiful, and the US is worse than as AFAIK. Giving north Americans UI doesn't really give them spending money, it barely gives you the ability to survive. Plus you aren't eligible for UI if you downgrade to part time, you need to outright lose your employment for UI. If you get a job somewhere else part time you get partial UI, but it's based on the lower wage.

[Jasper1984]

UI stands for exactly? (social security, i suppose)

[..]and the US is worse than as AFAIK.[..]

worse than most UI of EU countries, i suppose.
I can see that social security might be too much a turnaround politically, let alone figuring out how to do it financially. However the thing i talked about could also be used in the vein of semi-retirement for the older employees. A side-effect hoped for could be that some of them might work keep working until later age.

I guess i am leading too much off-topic here, problem is that i do not know much about Harper or Canada. Guess i will just dump some questions. Why is it so bad that the large coalition put up a president? Are they capable of putting together a good plan for the time ahead, or do they have too many dissimilarities? And if so, which issues might be a problem?

[SwiftSpear]

UI = unemployment insurance

it's a highly specialized branch of social security. The government gives you money if you had a job, but lost it.

[Pxtl]

I'm pro-coalition, so I'm not a good one to ask about why people are complaining about the idea, but the problem people have with the coalition is threefold.

1) A new party taking power without an election. Even though the coalition has the support of the majority of the House of Commons (and thus the people it represents) people think that's cheating and "undemocratic".

2) The coalition includes the support of the labour-union-driven NDP (who are considered fringe-loony-leftists by many Canadians) and the BQ (who were founded on Quebec Separatist principles). The fact that those parties were democratically voted into the House doesn't really concern the complainers, who just know that people they don't agree with and normally would have no real say in Parliament would suddenly getting some real control.

For example, the NDP leader, who is the charismatic mouthpiece of the coalition, is noted for having pointed out that Canada should be maintaining an open dialogue with non-Al-Qaeda-affiliated Taliban governors in the areas that the Canadian forces are struggling to control. This has earned him the nickname "Taliban Jack".

3) The coalition was to be led by Stephane Dion, the single most uncharismatic man in the entire history of politics.

[Forboding Angel]

UI = unemployment insurance

it's a highly specialized branch of social security. The government gives you money if you had a job, but lost it.

America does the same thing. You gotta get fired to get it tho.