Time for another election
I'm really not crazy about Harper putting the locks on Parliament but the other choice looked even worse.
I tend to agree that Harper doesn't have a majority and shouldn't govern like he does (although the Liberals essentially let him do that prior to this past election). However neither do the Liberals/NDP have a mandate to govern either. Clearly they were at the very least comtemplating this scenario if not conspiring together prior to if not immediately after the last election.
If they think a coalition is the answer then that's fine but be honest about it and let the voters decide.
What they should be doing is working with the Conservatives (the reverse is true as well) and negotiating. Don't like the economic update? Then suggest changes you can live with. It's give and take all around. However saying almost immediately after the update that it's time to overthrow the government weeks after the election?
If they're so confident that voters want a coalition government then be honest about it and take it to the voters. Let us decide, not an "on his way out" leader of a party that even they don't want anymore.
Comments (15)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
Our government should never circumvent parliamentary procedure and dissolve the session in order to bypass a confidence vote. Our Governor General has defeated her own legitimacy by allowing any future Prime Minister to avoid certain defeat in the House at anytime by proroguing. That is unconscionable anywhere but in a third world dictatorship disguised as a democracy.
A coalition is obscure, yes, but is the method in place for our MPs to work together to keep parliament running in case the ruling party loses the confidence of the House shortly after an election. We have had four prime ministers last less than a year, three of them within the past 30 years. Harper himself proposed a coalition instead of going to the voters if Martin had called an early election.
There is nothing illegitimate or wrong about a coalition government. It is, however, an affront to our democratic process to deny a free vote in the House.
"Clearly they were at the very least contemplating this scenario if not conspiring together prior to if not immediately after the last election." Every leader does this when a minority is present. Even Harper goes shopping in the opposition ranks to see who's for sale.
"It's give and take all around." Name once where Harper has given? The final straw was "taking" the right to strike, womens' right to pay equity, and the funding from the opposition. He had no desire to work with the opposition but with a minority government, was threatening to bankrupt them. That's why the non-confidence motion was proposed.
Canadians do not vote for a President or for a Prime Minister. The only ballot we cast is for a Member of Parliament to represent us in the House of Commons. Then the party with the greatest number of elected MP's, sometimes a majority, sometimes not, tries to govern based on the confidence of the House of Commons, composed of our elected representatives. Stephen Harper, who taunted opposition parties for the past two years to vote him down on confidence votes tried to ram his agenda though the commons but ran like a coward from the impending confidence vote. And now you suggest that the PM who introduced fixed election periods and walked away from that commitment should get yet another election?
No way.
If, after his cowardly time out, he loses, the GG should give the coalition the opportunity to show that it has the confidence of the House of Commons and give it the opportunity to govern.
Is our constituion so undemocratic?
The last election wasnt even neccesary. As I recall only one party, the conservatives, where claiming they had lost the confidence of the majority. Both Liberal and NDP parties argued against this "loss".
Now the conservatives wont relinguish government when majority opposition openly declares loss of confidence!
To top it off they declare what we know to be constitutional law, to be "treason", what we know to be a foundation of democracy, "Majority rule", to be undemocratic. Stephen Harper makes fools out of his "yellow dog voters" as he attempts to fool the unfooled.
Unfortunately, Harper's minions believe that if they continue spewing lies long enough, the public will begin to actually accept them as being true. The problem is, as we've seen in this past week, that the mob rule mentality is actually having an effect.
As mentioned you don't run a minority as you would a majority and that's where Harper failed miserably. The Liberals however seemed to have fatally read the mood of Canadians with their coalition with the NDP backed by the Bloc. Agree or disagree the idea is going over like a lead balloon because Canadians by and large feel sandbagged by the Liberals/NDP. I'm not crazy about another election but the Liberals and NDP could at least be honest and put it to voters that if either party doesn't win, they'll explore a coalition. It's not going over well because voters by and large feel they're being denied a say in who runs the country. It may be a minority for the Conservatives but that's what people by and large feel they voted in, not the equivalent of a bloodless coup. Thus the reasons so many feel that way not because they're, as you allude to, not intelligent. My 2 cents.
To top it off, Harper's minions have been repeating the same script over and over that the Bloc will be in control of the government since they would have veto power. Another outright lie that they have been repeating every time someone puts a camera in their face.
By repetition, these lies have become mob rule 'truths' mainly because people have an unsubstantiated fear of the Bloc and they are not confident in Dion's leadership abilities. Just because the polls are showing the numbers are up for the Conservatives, that doesn't mean that the lies they have been perpetrating aren't just that - blatent lies. The problem with this mob mentality is that it's giving Harper license to literally (cont'd)