So there is some really important shit happening now with the Canadian government. The main reason I'm posting this is to get some better info on it, since I really don't have any time to watch the news or read the paper anymore. Everyone I ask just says they don't know and don't care. Anybody here has better info on this ? Anybody actually in politics, and knows about the situation more? All I'm hearing is coalition and recession a lot. Which doesn't sound too good.



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Didn't know if this would exactly fit in SD or not..

Canadians re-elected Harper like, a month ago, and now there is a non confidence vote.

Reason? Harper attempted at a bill which would give tax dollars to parties accordingly to the amount of votes they recieved.
The other parties, having less votes and less seats, would ultimately recieve less money.

The Liberals and the Bloc join up in a Coalition. NDP get accepted into the party by the Bloc, and the Green Party sorta tags in.
Coalition government wont take voting changes becuase a vote just occured, but Harper's very party who stood by him within the last month, are now displeased at him.

Go figure.

Canada uses a Parliamentary system, meaning that the Prime Minister is appointed by Parliament. In this case, when Canadians "re-elected" the Prime Minister, they voted his party into a minority of seats. The only reason he has the office is because he had formed a coalition with other small parties to muster a majority of votes for prime minister.

The Parliament can dismiss a prime minister by a majority vote of no confidence, which has been called for against Harper, but Harper successfully convinced Governor-General Jean (appointed by Queen Elizabeth II) to suspend Parliament for a bit to delay the vote of no confidence. In the mean time, he will try to salvage his reputation and avoid being kicked out of office.

As part of the parliamentary system, a successful vote of no confidence also automatically triggers a new round of parliamentary elections as well.

As a Canadian, I can say that both descriptions are wrong.

Six weeks ago, we re-elected harper to a minority government. Since Canada has four major political parties, no party ever has 50% of the seats unless they're really popular, so with 140/300ish, Harper's government was close, but still minority. Normally, he would form cabinet and pass bills, but, instead, Harper went and did something really dumb. In his first budget vote (confidence by default) he added that party funding would be cut by 30 million, at this point in time it is awarded by vote, which is why the liberals are almost bankrupt.

Anyways, all the opposition parties disagree with this (the conservatives are the richest party by far) so they were going to vote the non-confidence thing again, but since they wanted to avoid an election, and take the opportunity to take over the parliament, they attempted an unprecedented move, which involved the liberals and NDP forming a coalition with less seats than the conservatives, and using the bloc as means of getting the support of the parliament. At the same time, Harper proposed suspending parliament in order to reform the budget and try to get it through. The Governor General has since chosen the latter, and parliament will be resumed in January.

Both choices would have set a precedent, this one is that the Prime Minister suspended parliament while a confidence vote was going through. As a related note, the announcement of the coalition dropped Canadian stocks to a very low level, magnifying the already-severe economic hits in Canada. Anyways, I am personally a conservative voter (Dion is in no way worthy of being the Canadian leader, as the vote has shown, Layton is basically a special-interest leftist group (37 seats) and well, no, the Bloc will never have a PM or I'll move to the Congo to get a better government system) and I think Harper is a waste of time. He puts right-wing voters to shame with his idiotic actions, and as a result, we saw a chance of having our representatives replaced by members of two less popular parties. So yeah, I don't like coalition, I don't like Harper, and I think suspending parliament in an economic crisis is idiotic. There's one Canadian's perspective.

I don't see where I was wrong.. Unless I'm mistaken in any parliamentary system you need a majority coalition/vote to elect a PM, right?

Now we have to wait until January for the Party merge thing. I hope the Conservatives do something in the meantime.

This makes the Florida Recount in 2000 look like good government.

I find this highly amusing. Carry on.

So the government is basically doing... err.. nothing?

You'd be mistaken there, PMs are taken from the party that has the most seats.

But yeah, this crap makes the US look democratic. At least you guys can pick a leader and stick with the decision.

Hey guys, lets all vote for Harper's government!
The majority of the crowd agrees.

Basically, Harper passed a bill that would PROVIDE funding according to how many votes the parties received, and tax dollars would be distributed accordingly.
Stupid Move.
He convinced Gov.Gen to hold off, and delay the non-confidence vote.
Now he's mustering whatever the hell he has left to avoid a coalition take over.

You can think of this is a Coup. Minus the guy dying part.