Today in National News: Governor General Agrees to Prorogue Parliament

As Ottawa slumbers for the next roughly two months, the crisis conversely has been taken to a halt. Parliament is scheduled to resume on January 26th, which would open the door to a 27th budget, as the conservatives have promised.

Big news, but is it unexpected? Last night, I was watching the At Issue panel on CBC, each predicting that the GG would cave to Mr. Harper’s motion to suspend parliament. Just a few days ago, though, nearly everyone thought that Harper is counting his last days as Prime Minister. I suppose that could still be the case, since the opposition cited that Harper would just be delaying the inevitable…

What can the coalition do to maintain ANY momentum they could have had to becoming the new government? Well, for starters, they could release advertisements that actually defend an NDP-Liberal coalition….so perhaps loyals to either party should begin donating to their party, in order to ensure that this coalition actually maintains its momentum…

My sincere opinion is that such a coalition will not go through, but federal politics could go either way. The only way this coalition could usurp power would be to vote down the budget, and actually present a reasonable budget to Canadians to counter the conservative budget. Let’s see if Dion can make his remaining days as Liberal leader something to cherish….as of now, he is still the lame duck leader of the Liberals.

*Insert political bias here* Donate to the Michael Ignatieff campaign: www.michaelignatieff.ca    Let’s ensure this brilliant, thoughtful man is leader of our wonderful country. Well…that’s if you share a similar opinion to myself=P

Today in National Politics: The crisis in Ottawa

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.