So basically the Conservatives are just delaying cutting party funding until Dec.? Wow, how democratic, how bi-partisan. What a new era of peace and love. /sarcasm

I hope that when this piece of legislation eventually comes to a vote we end up with the left coalition.

Any moron can seen that the Conservatives only got 35 percent of the vote. If the left parties ran strategically or we had proportional representation (why not have one proportionally represented chamber and one regionally elected chamber of parliament?) we would not have this terrible minority government, with their Herbert Hoover/William Bennett attitude towards the financial crisis.

Hey, thanks for the great find, Mathh. This should be very interesting. Glad to see that the opposition is doing something to bring down the republican-like Stephan Harper. It also gives me warm fuzzies to see the Bloq work together with the Liberals and NDP. Maybe we this can ensure unity between Quebec and the rest of the provinces. I would feel a real sense of dread if they separated. They are a great part of this country. But in the end, good article. Thanks for the find!

I don't know if I am comfortable with this.

Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of the Alliance/Conservative Party but they won the election. It isn`t there fault that Canada has grown so apathetic toward politics that less than 60% of us actually voted. Well, it's every parties fault but thats a different topic. This back door way around a democratically elected Government doesn't sit right with me.

How many pie in the sky ideas is Layton going to try and get passed for supporting this.

I hope this doesn't mean that

-Dion stays on as leader longer than planned. I fear he could be bullied into all kinds of crazy ideas.

-The Bloc is going to be running things behind the scenes as the deciding votes.

-The infrastructure investments needed in this country aren't delayed any further.

Harper pushed too far this time. The idea mentioned earlier that he may have designed this to get out of Dodge is in interesting one though. His GST cuts where widely criticized in financial circles as a bad move. Roughly 13 Billion dollars permanently removed from the Government coffers. Coupled with the corporate cuts also, it's easy to see why we are going back to running fiscal deficits.

I'm surprised to see little mention of fire sale of Government assets planned also in this update not talked about more. If I understand Flaherty correctly, they want to offload a lot of property and start pushing the P3 model of operation.

This weekend will be an interesting one for sure.

For all you Conservative haters, I guess you have no problems with the Liberal/NDP plan to take ALL firearms away from the people, huh? And yeah, this is not a conspiracy, this is open party policy. The UN idiocy these people want to bring in makes the gun control in UK/Australia look like NOTHING.

These are the same Liberals who refuse to put violent criminals behind bars, the same Liberals who would tax you to death to permanently pay welfare to people who never have to look for a job.

I don't care if Harper has horns growing out of his head, the Conservatives are so much better than the other choices it is SCARY.

I don't own a gun. And I think after feeling very upset to see the conservatives in again, when the only thing short of proportional democracy is the ndp, to actually see them in a coalition government would be a first in this country. Also, for this to mean they would form the government instead of calling an election, would also be a first. But most of us wouldn't want another election as that would make 3 in a short period of time. These are interesting times. But Canadians are not pushovers, though we are relatively well mannered. When they attempted to allow Sharia Law by stealth to exist in our family and business law as in UK, we protested and it was withdrawn. Usually, Canadians rising up in protest yields better results.

I love how Harper talks about how the Liberals and NDP need to earn votes rather than take them... when the conservatives are sitting on a measly 1 in 3 votes and they hold the rest of the deck

I was independent my whole life, until this last election and I saw the level of incompetence Harper radiated in all directions, on all relavent subjects. Did Harper really think putting his fingers in his ears and shouting would be equivalent to submitting a fiscal plan for his party during the election like every single other participating party?

I admit, I missed this story, I was busy today; but this makes my whole week Harper is getting the boot! Wooooo! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out

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Originally posted by cognoscente
This is exactly the kind of respondent, improvident politics we get for maintaining a parliamentary democracy. The Conservatives make one announcement regarding a plan to cut party funding for "economic" reasons (which by the way I don't agree with, Canada is doing absolutely amazing and there is no indication our economy will suffer in the slightest for the entirety of this so-called global recession-our political leaders aren't helping my spreading all this gloom and doom), and the other three parties decide to team up and take the House down. The issue is this new arrangement would bankrupt the other parties, as the Conservatives have been stockpiling most income from this $1.95/vote government funding plan, having had the most votes for such a long time. Sure, it's fair enough to say that the reaction by the NDP, Liberals and Bloc would have been expected by anyone in that position. However, in the end this announcement is exactly what they've been waiting for. It's a perfect opportunity to usurp power, and now they have the means (this media portrayed Conservative arrogance) to justify it. It's not justifiable. It's bullying, and now they're convincing everyone the Conservatives are using this plan to secure power for themselves, as if they're some fascist state party. Ridiculous if you ask me. Too bad the average Canadian is both poor, socialist and liberal. The public will eat this right up.

This type of party collusion should be illegal. If you form a party, you shouldn't be allowed to make cross-party allegiances. Otherwise, we end up with a government that does not realistically correspond to the votes that the people initially provided to allow those parties into office. It's absurd. You should see the Parliament in action. It's like a board of governors meeting for some Fortune 500 corporation. That's not Democracy.

First, paragraphs are your friend.

I don't think you've thought this through. There's nothing wrong with the parliamentary system, if anything, this is a demonstration of one of it's strengths; a party that makes poor decisions, that the majority of the house disagrees with, it doesn't stand. No one party can rule over all, passing laws and bills as they see fit without going through the proper checks and balances.

If Bush was in constant fear of getting removed from office, do you think he would have done 1/10th of what he has in the interest of his own party? No. He would've been removed long ago if he was our PM.

The key to staying in power for long periods in Canada, like Chretien, is quite simple; govern to the center. No one really thinks Chretien was a GREAT PM, he didn't do anything astounding, at all, but he also didn't do anything that really outraged the public on either side of the spectrum. He was a "good" PM, he basically kept the status quo, did his job and kept everyone moderately happy.

You make it sound like at any moment there could be an uprising by a random coalition of idiots in the house and we could have a government comprising of the Marxist party, Work-Less party and the Marijuana party; it doesn't work that way, it's not that easy.

The Conservatives barely formed a minority government and when you're a tiny minority, you have to do a damn good job to keep the majority happy or guess what? The majority, represented by the majority of voters in Canada, will take back the house, surprise!

The Liberals and NDP forming a majority is no different than the existing Liberals in America. All the Liberal party is in America is, is a giant coalition of all the past left-of-center parties coming together to combine voting power. When you do that, you end up with the same problems as they're currently experiencing where the media doesn't pay attention to 3rd parties and you get stuck with an eternal coalition of right and left of center parties.

I'd rather hear all the individual voices and give everyone a fair chance at being heard. Then, once the dust settles, if two parties want to come together and form a majority, represented by a greater number of Canadian voters; I see no problem in that. How could you...

Originally posted by Dulcimer
Canada should have elections every 2 weeks. Thats a spicy meatball. I hate my country and want it to be nuked.

Just invade us. Get it over with. I want to be liberated.

Get the damn french labels off my products. Canada is a spineless nation with no gobberment at all. They wonder why nobody votes.

Leave.

Spineless? Why? Because we don't preemptively invade other nations for oil?

Because Harper has been in bed with Bush since he got in office? Well you're in luck there! That can be fixed!

France played a large role in our founding, in fact gave us the name Canada AKA "New France", which was later ceded to Great Briton and formed Quebec; go to school.

In the words of the immortal and esteemed Danny Williams, anything but Conservative.

The NDP will obviously reject the offer of the conservatives to share power, and they will end up gaining the political momentum.

I'd say it is quite an even timing given Obama will be taking office soon.... does it means the Illuminati ringleaders were tired seeing these neocon fascists messing everything up and decided to throw them away from power altogether and go back to the good ol' liberal-socialist days? Perhaps Canada will finally end up assuming (or recycle) its old role as that bid boring socialist country in the North.

Ahhh the sweet Canada of my youth... back again on the dinner plate. Hopefully if the CIA doesn't manipulate things as they did a few years ago to put Harper in power.

Still waiting to see Sarkozy and Berlusconi get kicked out though...

[edit on 29/11/08 by Echtelion]

No evidence that Canada will suffer in this economic crisis?! What World are you living in? We are 100% in the same boat as the Americans while they go down. It doesn't matter one bit that our banking laws give us better foundations in that area, the economy is about JOBS.

Things are already crashing in every direction here in BC. Tens of thousands of jobs in the forest industry were lost before the US even admitted there was a problem over there. You think the mines are doing okay with the prices on metals? We are hemorrhaging jobs at an alarming rate and we will continue to do so. Canada makes money by digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to the US - period.

Yeah, blame Harper for everything, that makes sense. I honestly don't know any Canadian can feel this coalition would be a good thing, I guess you probably want David Miller as President of the World next?

Please forgive me if this a was already brought up in an earlier post , how does the fact that the liberal party leader is a lame duck factor into this ? When are the liberals do to hold there party leadership convention ?
I am sorry but I don't see this happening the NDP would want more then there fair share of power in any such government , the liberals would be to political do to the fact that they are to have a leadership convention very soon and how could the liberals make any deal that would depend on the backing of the Bloc ? What price would they have to pay for such support ?
The reason Canada has had minority governments for the last few elections is that the Canadian people are simply not happy with the choices that they are presented with .
In Canada the politicians think that the term bi partisan is a reference to a sex act .
There is no real difference between any of the parties all you need to do is look into how often these jokers will flip flop between the other parties . This flip flopping of parties is not limited to the back benchers either , there are many party members who held key portfolios , ran for there respective party leaderships who have crossed party lines to join the other side of the political coin when it seemed to suit them best .
Come on people wake up and stop believing that some politician will save us . They are all cut from the same cloth and they all practice the same dirty tricks and use smoke and mirrors to keep the publics eyes away from the real issues . Please don't take my word for it check it out for yourself