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Oh Canada!

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Zip

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This week the newly elected *minority Conservative government of Canada gave a fiscal update to parliament as part of it's speech from the throne. That update was surprisingly (and correctly) lacking in any multi-billion dollar bailout package for the auto or any other industry. Instead the Government of PM Harper proposed to cut government spending, review all government programs and (the shock and horror) actually cut some perks to politicians and Bureaucrats!

The biggest thing that the Harper Conservatives have promised to do is to scrap a perverse system of federal funding for political parties under which every party receives $1.70 for every vote cast for them. This move would save about $30 million every single year.

All of this has had me quietly and even not so quietly cheering on this new government.

But it was too good to be true.

Astounded and frightened that their gravy was going to be cut off the other 2 main parties in Canada have decided to try and form a coalition to bring down the minority Conservative Parliament. But since they don't have enough members of Parliament to beat the Conservatives on their own, they are actually going to rely on the Separatist Block Quebecois to achieve their coup d’etat.

This can be done with the approval of the **Governor General (Canada's unelected, government appointed, royally approved babysitter :huh: )

Before you ask, yes, the separatist party, who's only purpose is to try to destroy my country is also supported by my Taxes through the vote subsidy to political parties. :P

*A minority government is one that wins the plurality of votes in the election but that does not hold the majority of seats in the House of Commons. This means that on certain issues designated as "matters of confidence" that if all the other parties vote against the ruling party that party is said to have lost the confidence of the House and the government falls.

** Governor General is Canada's Head of State and the Queens representative in Canada. It is within her power in this case to dissolve parliament and either call for another election or ask the party that achieved the second highest number of seats in Parliament if they can form a coalition.

Although it has never been done in a situation like this the prevailing wisdom from constitutional experts is that since the government has so far not had the "confidence of parliament", it is being defeated on the speech from the throne (which is a confidence motion) and since the election was only 2 months ago that the Governor General could very well ask for this coalition of Liberals, Socialists and Separatists to form a government!

This has the possibility of ripping this country apart. In the last election in the western provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia the Liberal Party and Socialist NDP only won 21 riding's. The Conservatives won 71.

That landslide for the Conservatives was offset in Ontario and Quebec where the Liberals and Separatists and to a lesser extent the Socialists won more riding's in those more populated provinces.

I'm not a fan of the monarchy, I'm certainly not a fan of the appointed babysitter Governor General, and if this soup sandwich goes the way some people are thinking it will, no one will be able to call this country a democracy any more.

So to recap. The conservatives have taken a prudent wait and see approach to the global crisis, they have started to cut government spending and tightening the proverbial belt as it were (like individuals are told to do in times like these by governments, go figure!) and because of these cuts and the fucked up interventionist political idea that they are "not doing anything to fix the economy" the other parties are going to try to steal my right to vote to determine who is in charge!!!

I'm pissed.

Anyone need a middle aged soldier?

If you want to know more look at almost any political article here.

Edited by Zip
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So to recap. The conservatives have taken a prudent wait and see approach to the global crisis, they have started to cut government spending and tightening the proverbial belt as it were (like individuals are told to do in times like these by governments, go figure!) and because of these cuts and the fucked up interventionist political idea that they are "not doing anything to fix the economy" the other parties are going to try to steal my right to vote to determine who is in charge!!!

The US Government has a lot of checks and balances, and even the Electoral College that could, effectively, counter the popular will. In fact, it is designed to do that should a popular dictator arise in this country. Generally, the Electoral College votes along with the popular vote of their state, though there is no requirement that they do so, which is why you hear a lot of talk about electoral votes during American Presidential races.

I do have to wonder, though, what would happen if we had a very popular capitalist presidential candidate, and in order to retain power the Electoral College voted against that candidate, since most electoral voters tend to be either Democrat or Republican.

Having a coalition government seems strange. In the US, it can be said that our government changes during elections, but, at least the Federal Government is ruled by the Constitution, so it is not as if we have a major change in the government during elections (and that is on purpose by the Founders). I hear about the Coalition government of, say Israel, collapsing every once in a while, and they have to start over in forming the government; but in the US, we just get gridlock and not much gets done (which these days is good).

So, it seems like there is some sort of checks and balances in the Canadian government, which, at this point, is working against freedom, at least to some degree. But I don't know that the Canadian government was formed with freedom in mind per se, but rather it is more democratic. But, I don't know the facts on that.

But, most importantly, it seems like there is very bad political philosophy at work in Canada.

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The US Government has a lot of checks and balances, and even the Electoral College that could, effectively, counter the popular will. In fact, it is designed to do that should a popular dictator arise in this country. Generally, the Electoral College votes along with the popular vote of their state, though there is no requirement that they do so, which is why you hear a lot of talk about electoral votes during American Presidential races.

Thomas, you may (it is hard to tell from what you wrote) be laboring under the misconception that the Electoral College is a permanent body that just customarily votes the way the state voted. Actually, no. When you cast your ballot for Job Lowe and Jon Deaux for President and Vice President, you are in fact voting for a slate of electors who are promising, in turn, to vote for for the Lowe-Deaux ticket. Once they have done this in their state capital, their job is done and they return to their normal everyday existence.

A bit of utterly useless trivia: Back in 1972, the Libertarian party was founded and John Hospers was its candidate for president. One of the Republicans elected to the electoral college in Virginia actually cast his ballot for Hospers. That year happened to be a Nixon landslide, and the vote had no real effect. Nonetheless it's a high water mark for the Libertarians as they have yet to get another electoral vote. (The elector who changed his vote was Roger McBride and he was the 1976 nominee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_McBride )

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Harper's game of political chicken is exposing Dion, Layton and Duceppe for what they are: wannabe dictators. The lunatic leftist parties lost the election, elected fewer MPs than in 2006 and now that Harper is threatening to cut off their looted funds, they want to pull off a putsch and seize power. Harper's gambit has stripped off the polite Canadian veneer of democracy and has revealed the ugly truth of collectivist mob rule that threatens to immolate this country.

Harper was the lesser of five evils in the election. He was not inspiring but was less repugnant than the other moonbats. If Dion, Layton and Duceppe pull off this putsch then all pretense of Canada being a free country will be finished.

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Harper's game of political chicken is exposing Dion, Layton and Duceppe for what they are: wannabe dictators. The lunatic leftist parties lost the election, elected fewer MPs than in 2006 and now that Harper is threatening to cut off their looted funds, they want to pull off a putsch and seize power. Harper's gambit has stripped off the polite Canadian veneer of democracy and has revealed the ugly truth of collectivist mob rule that threatens to immolate this country.

Harper was the lesser of five evils in the election. He was not inspiring but was less repugnant than the other moonbats. If Dion, Layton and Duceppe pull off this putsch then all pretense of Canada being a free country will be finished.

Dan, do you get a sense that the west will start it's own sepratist movement in earnest if this coup happens?

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Dan, do you get a sense that the west will start it's own sepratist movement in earnest if this coup happens?

Well, Zip, as you are likely aware there has long been a western separatist movement in Canada. But it has historically been small, scattered and fractious, and has not been taken seriously by Canadians at large. Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept is the most well-known embodiment of the western separatists. What has been missing, until now, has been a major assault on the West by Ottawa. The National Energy Program was the last such assault. I think that the leftist putsch could be viewed in a similar light to the National Energy Program.

So I think that a western separatist movement would gain momentum following a coup. Perhaps it would pick up enough momentum for secession to be discussed openly by people outside of the lunatic fringe. Whether that would translate into a groundswell of public desire for secession, I am not sure. Westerners tend to see themselves as Canadian, and there is an emotional attachment to Canada despite the consistent western alienation that has been studied extensively. Alienation is not enough, but a dictatorship could be.

If the Dion/Layton/Duceppe junta forces a carbon tax down our throats, killing Alberta and Saskatchewan's robust economies, we might have the right conditions for a push for secession.

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When you cast your ballot for Job Lowe and Jon Deaux for President and Vice President, you are in fact voting for a slate of electors who are promising, in turn, to vote for for the Lowe-Deaux ticket.

No,that is not necessarily the case. They are free to vote for whoever they think ought to be President and Vice President. From the official government pages on the Electoral College:

In December, the electors of each state meet to vote for President and Vice President. The Presidential election is decided by the combined results of the 51 (the 50 states and the District of Columbia) state elections. It is possible that an elector could ignore the results of the popular vote, but that occurs very rarely.

In other words, the Electoral College could hold sway against the popular vote. I don't think we have ever been in a situation like what is going on in Canada, but it could happen legally. Of course, unbridled democracy is bad, but I think having systems like Canada and the United States was originally intended to have cooler minds actually deliberate on who is going to run the government, which I think is one reason those types of elections occur after the popular vote. So, it is possible that even in the United States, if a popular capitalist won the election on the popular vote, that the Electoral College could deny that swing to capitalism. But we are a very long ways from testing that in practice, since Obama and the at least semi-socialists won the popular vote; and the Electoral College have no yet confirmed that vote.

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If the Dion/Layton/Duceppe junta forces a carbon tax down our throats, killing Alberta and Saskatchewan's robust economies, we might have the right conditions for a push for secession.

Thanks for the reply. If those three wannabe's pull this off and the west takes a powder I'll be voting with my feet. :D

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I'm almost completely uninformed on Canadian politics, but what are the implications of this "coup" in terms of your country's economic policy? Is it just more socialism, or is there something else?

Yes to socialism, in a way that makes the worst ideas of Barack Obama look like Gorbachev standing beside Stalin.

They are also proposing a $30 billion bailout. Doesn't sound like much when you guys are throwing around hundreds but to our economy it is equivalent of 100 times as much, or $300 billion.

The economics of it piss me off to no end. i thought that our government was going to resist the knee-jerk reactionism that has plagued the rest of the planet and not try to inflate their way out of the "crisis" but these idiots, Larry, Moe and Curly are determined to throw good money after bad and follow the leader into economic stupidity. :dough:

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No,that is not necessarily the case. They are free to vote for whoever they think ought to be President and Vice President. From the official government pages on the Electoral College:

In December, the electors of each state meet to vote for President and Vice President. The Presidential election is decided by the combined results of the 51 (the 50 states and the District of Columbia) state elections. It is possible that an elector could ignore the results of the popular vote, but that occurs very rarely.

Technically true, *but* the electors selected by a state are of the same party as the candidate who won that state's vote (except in Nebraska and Maine where the legislature mandated a slightly different procedure). So it's extremely unlikely that, say, the Democrats in the electoral college will just up and decide to vote for the Republican. Likewise, in the hypothetical case mentioned earlier of an actually *good* candidate (from, let's say, the John Galt Party Line) winning on election day, it's extremely unlikely that the electors for that candidate, being members of the John Galt Party Line themselves, would just up and decide to vote for Tweedle-D or Tweedle-R.

Now it IS the case that the popular vote can go one way and the electoral college the other; it happened in 2000. But it did turn out that every single elector voted for the candidate that won their state, in that sense the Electoral College followed the popular vote in statewise slices and there was no surprise there.

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Politics of Procrastination?

I really wish PM Harper had asked the GG to call an election instead or suspending parliament.

He said the other three were trying to put one over on Canadians, he said Canadians didn't vote for the TIC's (Three Idiots Coalition) but then he pulls the one stunt in the parliamentary bag of tricks that gives the opposition ammunition for their "it's only about his job" propaganda.

Prime Minister Harper should (In my opinion) have asked the Governor General for an election to clear the air, scheduled for about the same time frame (26Jan) as that granted by the prorogation. Then he should have kicked the living crap out of the TIC's on the basis of their dirty tricks and forcing another election through backroom deals and collusion before the fiscal update was even issued.

From what I've been reading it's my guess that here are enough people on all sides of the political spectrum that are angry enough about this coalition to swallow a bit of partisanship and hand the Torries a small majority.

Combine those ones with the ones that are just sick and tired of minority gong shows, and are looking rationally for the party that has it together enough to offer to form a majority and end the misery and I think the Cons would have won a majority by the end of January and we as a nation could get to the business of really seeing the forest through the trees.

As it is I believe that the Conservatives have only postponed the inevitable.

Neither Layton or Duceppe sounded like they would even consider PM Steven Harper again, and Dion's weak insistence on "monumental change" which the opposition (all three of the heads of this incarnation of Cerberus) have previously shown means the unequivocal abandonment of conservative ideals and policy in favor of socialist and progressive ones.

Welcome to groundhog day. See you all right back where we started on January 26th.

Cross posted at: http://uncommonsensecanada.blogspot.com/

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From what I've been reading it's my guess that here are enough people on all sides of the political spectrum that are angry enough about this coalition to swallow a bit of partisanship and hand the Torries a small majority.

Harper has crushing poll lead

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Calling for another election was premature, in my view.

But he didn't. The best that could be said for proroguing parliament is that perhaps the opposition coalition will self-destruct.

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Why did Harper withdraw his proposal to stop direct subsidies of political parties? It sounds like he has his opponents on the run.

Yeah, that pissed me off as well. The only reasons I can think of are that;

1. It wasn't his main objective. He knew about the Bloc and NDP collusion already, perhaps he wanted to truncate their planning of the palace coup to knock them off their game plan, and he knew poking them in the wallet was the way to force their hand.

2. He may have just miscalculated the popular support for the move when he fist announced it and made a pragmatic decision to scrap that aspect of his plan so he could push on with others.

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There's also the fact that in Canada not giving away taxpayers money to someone is considered the same as muzzling them.

I can't count how many times, even in the news, that I heard people say it was "dictatorial" and that he was destroying those with opposing views.

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There's also the fact that in Canada not giving away taxpayers money to someone is considered the same as muzzling them.

I can't count how many times, even in the news, that I heard people say it was "dictatorial" and that he was destroying those with opposing views.

Yes, like somehow the taxpayers magic money makes it possible for political parties to issue partisan talking points.

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  • 1 month later...

I think him getting the prorogation through was enough to break the coalition. The guy is actually incredibly adept politically, having already survived 3 (or 4?) elections of minority governments. More people out here in the east (especially Toronto) need to wake the F up though, and stop voting NDP (especially stop voting for Layton and his wife, but they have 2 of the most Socialist populated areas of Toronto). Kinda funny that the NDP got a seat in Alberta though.

Ignatieff replacing Dion will make the Liberals stronger, but they have some rebuilding to do. He seems like a smart guy, but I haven't read enough about him.

What really bugs me is the political apathy of the country. Nobody cares if the country goes in the shitter it seems.

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