Originally posted by Spock Shock

... if a general election was to be called, the majority of the votes would go towards harper by the sounds of the prospects on the phones, they are raged over the current tactics of the opposition parties in a clawing effort to bring down a government our country voted in favor of 8 weeks ago.

Last time around, the PCC didn't got a majority because of the seats held by the Bloc in Québec. In a new election, the PCC will not win more seats in Quebec, probably less.

Now in the rest of Canada, will they trust Harper again? knowing that he can add fuel to the fire (instead of dealing with the economy, his priority was to cut the funding of the other party, and then going back on that decision, saying that it is not worth starting a fight over that, big lack of judgment).

And next time, it will not be with Stéphane Dion, but probably with Michael Ignatieff (or Bob Rae?), so it will be a different dynamics.

So I'm no so sure that if there is a new election, the PCC will win that easily.

This thread is ample proof that most Canadians have a drastic lack of understanding of politics in Canada. There have been accusations that the Conservatives in Canada are identical or similar to the Republicans in the United States. However, an accusation like that crumbles when it's actually scrutinized. The Conservatives are actually left wing on a continental scale, left of even the Democrats in the USA. There are the constant accusations of "what Harper wants to do", yet in almost 3 years of being Prime Minister he hasn't once even whispered anything akin to what they are accusing him of.

There are accusations that Harper has hijacked government, called an election against his own law, and forced opposition parties to vote with him.

Hijacked government? How can anybody hijack a government when they are duly elected to be that government by a democratic election?

Called an election against his own law? First of all the Prime Minister cannot call an election, he can request that the Governor General call one. Furthermore, the law states that there will be fixed election dates, however the power of the Governor General to call an early election cannot be compromised.

Forced opposition to vote with him? It is a Parliamentary vote, which ALL elected MP's vote in. The fact that the opposition parties had neither the policy, the money, nor the will to force a new election so they voted with the government was THEIR choice, it wasn't forced on them by anybody.

The candidates representing the Conservatives earned more votes and seats than the other candidates representing their parties. What that says that the Conservatives have the support of a greater percentage of the population than the other individual parties, so when somebody says "most Canadians don't support the Conservatives" they are only telling part of the truth. What they neglect to mention is that even MORE of those Canadians don't support the party that that person supports.

What we saw with this coalition was little more than sour grapes by both the losing parties and their supporters. The fact that ANY Canadian would throw their support behind this coalition is quite frightening. Two of the parties previously insisted that they are so fundamentally different in policy that they could never merge or form a coalition, and the third one has 1 dominating policy, which is their desire to separate Quebec from Canada to form a sovereign nation of it's own, effectively breaking up the country that they would have been having a hand in governing.

I also find it ironic that those complaining that Harper only got 38% of the vote means that the majority don't want him didn't seem to find it an issue when their own party only got 40 percent of the vote. Where was their petition then? That's the way Canada works. With so many parties and a parliamentary system, getting over 50 percent of the popular vote is a very difficult task. What matters more in Canada is where exactly the votes come from. Canadians should realize the fact that a majority government with less than 50% of the popular vote is actually MORE likely than a majority government with more than 50% of the popular vote. This "the majority don't want him" B.S. is rather humorous. Those that are making that complaint should really delve a little deeper into the parliamentary system of government.

Ah the beauty of Canadian politics. In Canada it truly appears that many people actually want the blind to lead the blind.

[edit on 2-1-2009 by bronco73]