I need to be convinced about this coalition!!

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

The point of your psot being that teh other parties are working together? because i don't think tehy have a mandate to do so until they face teh voters.

Then you obviously don't understand how a parliamentary system works.  It's well within the accepted tradition of Parliament that the opposition can propose to form the government.  We don't elect goverments, we elect MP's.  The actions of those MP's and their parties determine who governs.  This isn't the United States - we don't give our representatives mandates.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

I don't get this notion that the voters told parliament to work togehter. i don't think it was that sophisticated a message they were consciously sending. I think everyone voted for the aprty they wanted and in the end, nobody won a majority. People who voted Tory, wanted a Tory majority. people who voted Liberal wanted a Liberal majority. neither got it but I don't see it as some grand message among millions of voters saying "we want a coalition of the non-tory parties." The results are what tehy are and some parties decided to form an alliance.

I never said the voters' message was "we want a coalition of the non-tory parties". However, given that no party was given a majority we are a left with two options: the parties work together or we call another election. I'm willing to believe the former over the latter. Given that no parties were willing to work with the conservatives, a coalition only seems reasonable.

wage zombie wrote:

If the coalition can make it to six months beyond the next Liberal leader then people will be happy to forget all about Dion.

The question is not "if the coalition makes 6 months and forget about Dion", the questions is HOW to make it to 6 months with Dion, in the unforgetable position as Prime Minister. Where is the public support for "Dion" and if it is not there, what is done to counteract that negative.

coeus wrote:

...

As for the prospects of getting PR introduced, I don't see it anytime soon considering the king makers (the Bloc) would never support it

Actually, they officially support PR.  Interesting to see if they still would if it comes close to really happening.

It's entirely possible.  The fact that they would have fewer seats is offset by the fact that there would be no false majorities so their actual power in the house could go up, not down.

Consider the last election.  Cons 38%, Libs 27%,  NDP 18%,  Bloc 10%, Greens 6%;

Libs + NDP < 50% so they would need either the Greens or the Bloc to hold power.  The only 2 party majority is the Cons and and the Libs.  I see no reason to think that the Bloc would not succeed in getting something out of that parliament.

writer wrote:

Quote:

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is endorsing the proposed coalition government and says she has spoken with Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion about the possibility of her being appointed to the Senate.

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081202.wPOLcoalitio... and Mail[/url]

Ha!  We scooped the Globe!

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

So, be honest, everyone...If it were the Libs or NDP with 144 seats and the Tories teamed up with the Bloc to bring them down, nobody would take issue with it? Nobody would be saying it was undemocratic?

Any arrangement of elected MP's asking to form the government is democratic.  Who the parties are is irrelevant.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

So, be honest, everyone...If it were the Libs or NDP with 144 seats and the Tories teamed up with the Bloc to bring them down, nobody would take issue with it? Nobody would be saying it was undemocratic?

Nope, I would not take issue with it from a democratic view point, I may be pissed that it happened, and would loath that the CPC were in power, but I would not scream "anti-democratic". We have a representational system. That has been optically skewed towards the PMO and party. It is a false conceptual framework that was created in a representative parliament.The majority of representatives are what count, end of story.

I do not see the Bloc's as wanting to destroy Canada. They want what is best for Quebec. If they destroy canada, they destroy Quebec, the way it stands at the moment.

You know this fear mongering is getting annoying. Both here and in the larger Canadian context. And again, I will point out, that the more people fear, the less rational they think.

The inability to think rationallty is proportional to the stress experienced. So it serves propagandists well to have a heighted fear ratio, then people will not be able to rationally see, the BS from the truth.

___________________________________________________________
"watching the tide roll away"

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

So, be honest, everyone...

jrootham wrote:

coeus wrote:

...

As for the prospects of getting PR introduced, I don't see it anytime soon considering the king makers (the Bloc) would never support it

Actually, they officially support PR.  Interesting to see if they still would if it comes close to really happening.

It's entirely possible.  The fact that they would have fewer seats is offset by the fact that there would be no false majorities so their actual power in the house could go up, not down.

Consider the last election.  Cons 38%, Libs 27%,  NDP 18%,  Bloc 10%, Greens 6%;

 

Libs + NDP < 50% so they would need either the Greens or the Bloc to hold power.  The only 2 party majority is the Cons and and the Libs.  I see no reason to think that the Bloc would not succeed in getting something out of that parliament.

Fully Agreed. I've been trying to convince people of this for ages.

EDIT: Oh and this thread smacks of conservative trolling to me as well.

[i][b]Brian Topp[/b]: Our friends on the blue team seem to mostly focus on sticks, and not so much on carrots. ;)[/i]

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

I think you hit the nail on the head kropotkin. Every single party in the hosue right now is behaving out of self interest and out to screw their opponents. That's all. it ahs nothing to do with the economy, nothing to do with what's good for the country.  A plague on all their houses.

You are quite persistent, aren't you?

You have discovered that all the parties in the House are acting out of self-interest. Have you contacted a publisher to pitch this discovery yet?

"A plague on all their houses." How noble. But in your case, it means Harper remains in power for a second run without a majority mandate, cynically dictating economic, social, and foreign policy measures that are profoundly destructive to our country and its people.

I don't give one tiny damn what motivated every player here to attempt to seize power away from this gang of extreme rightists. We all justly showed our contempt for Dion when he cravenly "abstained" and played hooky while Harper ruled as if he had a majority. Now that the NDP and Bloc (and Harper himself) have cornered the Liberals into doing [b][i]precisely what we condemned them for not doing for the past 2.5 years[/i][/b], I am cheering, applauding, and egging them on to grab power, democratically, by any means possible and as fast as possible.

I am partisan. I thought everyone here was. I don't support any one of these parties. But I wholeheartedly back this coalition and call on all Quebeckers and Canadians to do likewise. Backing this coalition does not mean supporting wrong stands that it may take on various vital issues (be it handouts or Afghanistan or whatever). It means urging them to crush the monster that is Harper and prove that Canada will never tolerate such cynical extremism again.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

-I'm not a constitutional lawyer and whatever teh actual law may be, this simply seems incredibly undemocratic to me. Love him or hate him, Harper won the last election fair and square.

I'd like to comment on your other issues, but I don't know that I have much to add that hasn't already been said in this thread. But I do want to point out something with this one particular point. I've been posting this link everywhere because people keep saying its not constitutional or it's illegitimate, but those arguments are wrong.

The Parliament Web site has this nice page posted that very simply spells out exactly what should happen in this situation. The coalition is totally within the regular framework of how parliament operates

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/idb/forsey/parl_gov_02-e.asp

To summarize, if a minority government gets reelected with only a plurality of the votes (another minority) then upon losing confidence (by vote or censure) the governor general has to ask the opposition if they can form a government with the support of the other parties or else call another election. 

So this coalition representing the majority of the voters, makes perfect sense and is in keeping with the law.

sofun wrote:

We don't elect goverments, we elect MP's.  The actions of those MP's and their parties determine who governs.

Where were you when everybody here was calling for legislation to prevent MP's from crossing the floor without first going back to the voters in their riding for re-election? It was torches and pitchforks around here for about a month after David Emerson decided to become a Conservative. Your liberal attitude towards what MP's should be able to do without regard to the will of the electorate would certainly have been controversial back then!

Things have changed though. Now, when the entire NDP caucus wants to cross the floor and support the Liberals - join their neoliberal fucking cabinet, even - babblers say the voters can just go to hell and the MP's can do whatever they want once elected. That's some democracy! 

Unionist wrote:

It means urging them to crush the monster that is Harper and [b]prove that Canada will never tolerate such cynical extremism again.[/b]

No, wait. That's been done... 

Well said Unionist!

  All this talk of a 'pox on all their houses' is just a cop out for understanding what is going on and formulating an educated opinion on the matter.

[i][b]Brian Topp[/b]: Our friends on the blue team seem to mostly focus on sticks, and not so much on carrots. ;)[/i]

Tommy_Canuck wrote:

I vote for a leader/party, whether he/she is Liberal or Conservative.  My
vote goes to the MP that represents the leader and party I want.
Needless to say, I would never waste my vote on any another party,
unless there is a real possibility they could form government.

Now the person I had the least confidence in leading our country, refuses to respect my vote/choice.

 

Please learn how the parliamentary system actually works before spewing this conservative spin.

[i][b]Brian Topp[/b]: Our friends on the blue team seem to mostly focus on sticks, and not so much on carrots. ;)[/i]

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

Every poll showed that the majority of voters did not want a majority for anyone.

There was at least one poll that showed more people wanted a majority government than a minority government: [url=http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-F08-T340E.pdf]See this piechart[/url]

47% wanted a Harper, Dion, or Layton majority

41% wanted a Harper, Dion, or Layton minority

12% were "unsure"

So what do your polls say?

M. Spector wrote:

Where were you when everybody here was calling for legislation to prevent MP's from crossing the floor without first going back to the voters in their riding for re-election?

I know you didn't ask me this, M. Spector, but I never supported that frenzy for one second. I ridiculed the NDP daily for jumping on this foolish bandwagon and featuring this nonsensical legislation on their website, until they finally got tired and wisely scrapped it.

Parties get elected on substantive promises which they promptly and cynically break. That's a far bigger assault on democracy than an individual - acting either out of conscience or base self-interest - changing  jerseys. In fact, sometimes individuals do so because they perceive that their own party has broken a promise which goes against their conscience.

Anyway, these party caucuses are under the dictatorship of the leader and her/his coterie, 99% of the time. There is nothing whatsoever democratic about them.

But something strange happened during the last election. People in many regions rose up and proclaimed their disgust for the extremist attacks of Harper. In our FPTP electoral system, and lacking consistent leadership (because of the unprincipled partisanship and general opportunism of the other parties), they were incapable of giving uniform expression to that uprising.  Now Harper, having won a larger minority, signalled from day 1 that he will rule as a Dictator. He instantly starting dictating measures that he had never even hinted at during the election. He laughed and scowled at the suckers who had allowed him to lie and slide his way up the middle.

Time to overthrow the scumbag and his flock. That's democracy. Like God, it works in mysterious ways. And like the flow of history, the people must struggle to be consistent with its direction and influence and accelerate it in a positive way. They must not stand on the sidelines wailing and flailing that "this is impure". Life is f***ing impure. Long live life!

sofun wrote:

Piss off about where I was back when.  I'm here now and I don't have to justify anything to you or anyone else.

Um, it was what we like to call around here a "rhetorical question." Believe it or not I actually couldn't care less where you were.

It's just that it would have been fun to watch you getting torn to pieces by the slavering Emerson lynch-mob for suggesting that once MP's are elected they don't have to do what the voters expected them to do; the same mob that is now nodding its collective head sagely at the wisdom of your conception of democracy.   

Interested Observer wrote:

M. Spector:

Your example only shows people's preference.

Indeed it does. And it contradicts what Bookish Agrarian so confidently proclaimed was the undisputed preference of the voters regarding majority government.

I guess "people's preference" really doesn't matter in a democracy?

M. Spector wrote:

[There was at least one poll that showed more people wanted a majority government than a minority government: [url=http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-F08-T340E.pdf]See this piechart[/url]

47% wanted a Harper, Dion, or Layton majority

41% wanted a Harper, Dion, or Layton minority

12% were "unsure"

So what do your polls say?

Democracy is supposed to be about choices. Did anyone even think to ask whether Kanadians want a true majority or a phony one with a cherry on top? Aha! Y'see now?

M. Spector wrote:

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

Every poll showed that the majority of voters did not want a majority for anyone.

There was at least one poll that showed more people wanted a majority government than a minority government: [url=http://www.nanosresearch.com/library/polls/POLNAT-F08-T340E.pdf]See this piechart[/url]

47% wanted a Harper, Dion, or Layton majority

41% wanted a Harper, Dion, or Layton minority

12% were "unsure"

So what do your polls say?

If you had bothered to read the poll chart you would find once you take out the partisan voters the clear plurality of voters were hoping for a minority.  Every other poll I saw, that asked the simple majority-minority question- not framed by who would lead them, showed a clear preference for minority. 

If I had been polled in that question I would have said NDP majority.  But then this was a question about my dream scenario.  If the question was followed up failing that what would you like - I would have said a minority parliament.  So the next time you want to be a snarky smart ass try reading the whole thing you are linking too.  A dollop of logic would help as well.

madmax, I sure as shit never wrote this:

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

George Victor wrote:

I haven't heard a single detail of what this great economic stimulus from the coalition will be so I'll ahve to withold judgment. But, really, honestly, do you think that this attempt to defeat harper is really about the economic statement as opposed to jsut trying to take power? Give me a break.

(and madmax wrote):

  Hmmm, Stornaway. Looks good. Harper should enjoy it.

Because anyone making the above comment and has the desire to post in these forums, is probably full of it. Stopping Harper has become the imperative. He choose a game of brinksmanship while ignoring the economy. So is this about power? Absolutely... getting someone in power who will work with enough of the house to set aside partisan games and deal with the economy. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

How you were able to equate me with the star spangled conservative and Stevie Harper I'll never know.