Many Canadians are familiar with this crisis, I hope. The opposition party – being the Liberals- appear ready to topple the current minority government, the Conservatives, in a non-confidence vote. The Liberals appear to be ready to take the unprecedented move to form a coalition government with the NDP, and build a cabinet from this coalition. Further, their proposed government will be propped up by the Quebec separatists, the Bloc.
I’ve got to admit….politics never gets this interesting in Canada. We’ve had two years where news outlets threw as much Obama rhetoric as possible at us (the viewers)…and believe me, for lovers of politics like myself…that was wonderful! I concede, I secretly wanted something special to happen in Canada…now, here it is! Something so different, and interesting!
Obviously, the conservatives can prorogue the House of Commons. Those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, it simply means to halt….. the house is on vacation….they’ll be back January under these conditions, with the opposition parties looking to eventually defeat the government anyways.
I don’t know about you guys, but I imagine that we want to just avoid prolonging the inevitable….if this government doesn’t have the confidence of the House of Commons, we might as well topple it with a government that appears to have a larger base of confidence in the house. It seems only fair….after all, this is a parliamentary democracy and it operates strictly under the notion that the house must have confidence in the current government.
Should we topple it? I assume so, yes. I don’t think we should waste our tax dollars on an election because, last I checked, a huge portion of the population did not even bother to cast their ballot. It would just be a waste of time and money. Now I know this will come under huge scrutiny, but consider that the Harper government did not receive a majority mandate from Canadians….he received a minority mandate, and that means he desperately requires the confidence of the House of Commons. A majority of Canadians seemed to have voted in favour of ousting the conservatives, though I concede their votes were divided amongst the other ‘left’ wing parties. That is, of course, assuming that ALL those individuals who casted their votes for NDP, or Green, or Bloc, would vote Liberal if that was their only alternative……..
So many questions……..at this rate, I’m even questioning myself now….though I stand committed to the idea that we must topple a government that appears to lack the confidence of the house. We ought to try out this ‘coalition’ for the 18 months…..though I have fears of the Rae Days manifesting itself once again…..
So confusing….but that’s our political system here in Canada. I suppose we need to debate now what is really in the interest of our country: another election, a coalition government, or the proroguing of parliament (eventually, under this idea, the government would be toppled anyways…).
Discuss.
