Canadian Election

[Badger]

Prime Minister Paul Martin has asked the Governor General (Adrienne Clarkson) to dissolve parlaiment in order that an election can be held on June 28.

Initial opinion polls indicate a possible Liberal majority government, or more likeley a Liberal minority government.

The Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democratic Party are expected to gain a few seats as a result of the election, at the expense of the Liberals.

My thoughts are "How could Canadians be such suckers to vote for the same nest of crooks that have been funnelling millions of tax dollars on patronage to their buddies, and wasting billions of tax dollars in negligently comptrolled programs? How could Canadians vote for this batch of negligent, incompetent, or immoral politicians who claim they don't know what goes on in their departments, yet call the Auditor General's motives into question?"

Does anyone else have any thoughts or comments?

 

[iain]

What are the main issues likely to be in the election?

 

[Badger]

Interestingly enough, analysts seem to be saying that there will be few, if any, issues in this election.

As background, in the past year or so in Canadian politics, there have been many upheavals.

The main ones are the retirement of Jean Chretien, the former prime minister, and the election of his successor, Paul Martin to leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, and by default, Prime Minister of Canada; and the amalgamation of the (now stay with me here) Progressive Conservative Party of Canada with the Canadian Alliance Party [formerly known as the Reform Party], and the election of a new leader there.

WRT the Liberal leadership change, the party is still bleeding from the internal struggles that the leadership convention wrought. To a lesser extent, that is true of the Conservative/Alliance merger.

There have be a large number of scandals and fiascos surrounding the current Liberal government, that have come to light in the past year, notably the Human Resources Development Comission "misplacement" of almost a $500 million, the skyrocketing costs of the Gun Registry (initially pegged at $2million total, now discovered to be approaching $1billion), and the latest Federal Sponsorship scandal where about $250 million can't be traced.

Good sites to go to, right now, are Gobeandmail.com, and Canoe.ca.

The main things on the table are Health Care, Defense spending, taxation, trade issues (beef and softwood lumber, primarily), and government accountability.

It appears that instead of dealing with these issues, it'll be more of a mudslinging session than us Canadians are used to.

 

[KelvinG]

Prime Minister Paul Martin has asked the Governor General (Adrienne Clarkson) to dissolve parlaiment in order that an election can be held on June 28.

Initial opinion polls indicate a possible Liberal majority government, or more likeley a Liberal minority government.

The Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democratic Party are expected to gain a few seats as a result of the election, at the expense of the Liberals.

My thoughts are "How could Canadians be such suckers to vote for the same nest of crooks that have been funnelling millions of tax dollars on patronage to their buddies, and wasting billions of tax dollars in negligently comptrolled programs? How could Canadians vote for this batch of negligent, incompetent, or immoral politicians who claim they don't know what goes on in their departments, yet call the Auditor General's motives into question?"

Does anyone else have any thoughts or comments?

All I can say right now is I'm not sure who I will vote for. I might just vote NDP. They're a little to socialist for my tastes, but I'm a little wary of the Liberals, obviously for some of the above mentioned reasons.
I just can't imagine voting Conservative, though. Even though they seem to be trying to downplay themselves as being "right wing." They want us to believe they are more moderate.

I'm going to need some time to think this one over and do a little more research before I come to a conclusion.

 

[Badger]

KelvinG, what scares you about the Conservatives being "right wing"?

 

[KelvinG]

KelvinG, what scares you about the Conservatives being "right wing"?

Well, Badger, you're question made me do some research into the Conservative party vs. the Liberal party vs. the NDP.

The Conservative party is actually more moderate than a classic right wing party. By American standards, our Conservative party is actually somewhat liberal.

I've never been big on certain right wing stances when it comes to issues like abortion, gun control, drug legalization.
But, as I said, our Conservative party isn't traditionally right wing.
So maybe my immediate dismisal of them is hasty and not well thought out.
In most senses of the word, I'm a liberal. However, I'm cautious of too much socialization of government.

Again, I'm back to where I started, not knowing who I'm going to vote for.

 

[RebeccaBradley]

The new Conservative Party is not the same entity as it was before the PC and Alliance - er - allied. We can't base our expectations of this new party on the performance of the old PCs. And they're scary because their leader, Stephen Harper, is Canada's answer to Dubya - a Fundamentalist homophobic hardliner who wants to privatize the CBC, emasculate the health system, beef up the military and invest in Star Wars-type technology, among other scary or repugnant policies. He'd also like to see Canadian troops in Iraq.

I actually voted Conservative in the last election, because I was in Joe Clark's riding, and I not only respected him but felt he was our best chance to keep the Alliance out of ONE Calgary seat, anyway. And we won! This time, I'm stumped. Can either vote by my conscience and inclinations (NDP); or else tactically, hoping to keep Stephen Harper's flunky out (Liberal). But after the waste and corruption in the last Parliament, it would really stick in my craw to vote Liberal.

I kinda miss old Doris Day - at least while he was stumbling around with one foot in his mouth, Canadian politics was funny. I could use a laugh right now.

 

[iain]

How does the electoral system work in Canada? I seem to recall it being similar to the UK with MPs elected who then choose the Prime Minister - is that right? Do you use first-past-the-post or some form of PR for elections?

 

[RebeccaBradley]

Yeah, we're first-past-the-post, and pretty much identical to the UK system, except we have a Senate rather than a House of Lords. Each political party puts up a candidate in each riding, and the winner takes a seat in Parliament. The head of the party with the most seats in Parliament becomes Prime Minister. The head of the runner-up party becomes Leader of the Opposition.

First-past-the-post doesn't work very well; that is, the distribution of seats in Parliament doesn't reflect the popular vote very well. But I can't see any form of PR coming in any time soon. The only reform this time around was changes in the riding boundaries.

 

[iain]

"Ridings" sounds so much better that our boring "constituencies". We do still have ridings in England but only as names - they haven't had any administrative reality for a long time. Seems much more romantic. (Perhaps we should go back to Hundreds and Shires with a Shire-reeve as the head policeman in each Shire).

Do you have one MP per riding? How many ridings? How is the Senate elected?

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

How is the Senate elected?

Hee hee hee. The Senate in Canada is appointed by the governing party. Over the years (going back 20 or 30) the Liberals and old PC (progressive conservatives) would flip-flop in winning elections. The ruling party would stuff the senate with party hacks and cronies. Sometimes a famous Canadian figure would be given a seat as well. This would cause partisan hold-up of bills passed by Parliment. The senate could effectively nap for months holding up legislation.

Canada should either abolish the senate or make the senators elected and accountable. Senators even get a bonus (pay) if they show up for work!

Charlie (maybe make the Ottawa Senators the de facto Senate) Monoxide

 

[RebeccaBradley]

Hey, Iain - Charlie covered the Senate question with great panache. As for the number of ridings, we have about 300, roughly allocated on the basis of population. Which means that the election is almost always decided on the basis of how Ontario votes, because that's where our overall centre of gravity lies. Which means that the West and the Maritimes often end up feeling marginalized - and let's not even start about Quebec. We end up with some very peculiar Parliaments.

At least we're all cheering for the same hockey team at the moment. Go Flames, eh?

 

[Segnosaur]

Yeah, we're first-past-the-post, and pretty much identical to the UK system, except we have a Senate rather than a House of Lords.

Actually, another difference is that in Canada, the head of the party (who can become the prime minister if they have enough seats in parliment) is elected by a vote of party members, instead of just being chosen by MPs (as takes place in Britian).

The way that the head of the party is chosen differs according to the party's constitution. Usually they have a Leadership convention where delegates from each riding are sent to vote; some parties have experimented with telephone voting, etc. to give more of a one-person, one-vote idea.

 

[sorgoth]

Unfortunately, I cannot vote yet, but if I could I would definitely vote Green. I think they might actually have a chance to win a seat or two this year! www.greenparty.ca

The new liberal commercials tell us why we shouldn't vote Conservative, but give us no reason to vote Liberal.

 

[Segnosaur]

The new Conservative Party is not the same entity as it was before the PC and Alliance - er - allied. We can't base our expectations of this new party on the performance of the old PCs. And they're scary because their leader, Stephen Harper, is Canada's answer to Dubya

Where do you get the idea that he's Canada's answer to Bush? Yes, both are on the 'right wing' relative to their respective countries, but the U.S. republican party is well to the right of where Canada's conservative party is.

Even in terms of personality, there is little to compare between the two, with Bush being viewed as a 'screw up', while Harper is generally seen as a boring 'policy wonk'.

who wants to privatize the CBC,

Why do you think the CBC should exist? It looses money consistenly, and more imporantly, ratings are really poor. Why should we keep spending money on a network that nobody watches?

emasculate the health system,

What makes you think they want to 'emasculate' the health care system? Have they suggested eliminating all funding for health care?

beef up the military

The Canadian military has been underfunded for over a decade now. Whomever gets into power will have to spend more on the military, if nothing else than to replace equipment which should have been replace years ago. (Sea Kings anyone?) Or are you suggesting we totally scrap all of our military?

among other scary or repugnant policies.

And what other 'scary' policies would they be? Tax cuts? Oooo... you mean that I won't have more than half my income taken away? Allowing referendums and recalls? How horrible, allowing Canadians to have more control over government policy.

 

[Segnosaur]

I've never been big on certain right wing stances when it comes to issues like abortion,

Although right wing people tend to be anti-abortion, keep in mind that one of the concepts that the old Reform party had was that they would have referrendums on things like abortions. So, instead of the government deciding, the people would, and personally I feel that the majority of people would agree that aboritions should be kept legal.

Something else to consider: Many of the abortion clinics in Canada are privately run. The NDP is against private health care, and as such, they may just close some of these clinics.

gun control,

Just out of curiousity, what is your opinion on gun control? Do you want an outright ban? do you support the current gun registry?

And are your feelings on this theoretical or pragmatic?

(For example, you may want all handguns banned, but if you take the pragmatic side you may decide that the resources used to control guns could be better spent on policing.)

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

At least we're all cheering for the same hockey team at the moment. Go Flames, eh?

Thank Jeebus that ESPN is showing the game tonight ....

Charlie (go Flaming Moes go) Monoxide

 

[Segnosaur]

Unfortunately, I cannot vote yet, but if I could I would definitely vote Green. I think they might actually have a chance to win a seat or two this year! www.greenparty.ca

You know, I always assumed the green party was composed of a bunch of looney-leftwingers, but I took a look at their platform and some of the stuff actually seems reasonable.

A couple of problems though:
- Take a look at their policies on health care. One of their platforms is increased investment on "alternative" health care (they don't spell out what alternatives, but some alarm bells should be ringing... Government-supported homeopathy anyone?)
- They talk about reducing income taxes and shifting the tax base on 'consumables', but they also seem to want to increase funding to things like housing support. Frankly, I don't think they've thought out the numbers too well (in fact, the more successful they are with their environmental policy the more their financial polocies will fail)

The new liberal commercials tell us why we shouldn't vote Conservative, but give us no reason to vote Liberal.

Don't you think the Liberals may be just a little biased in their reasons not to vote for Harper?

 

[Badger]

The first week of the campaign draws to a close, and it looks like everyone is shooting at the Liberals. They're getting the NDP on them for all the cuts to government services while Paul Martin was minister of finance, the Bloc Quebecois is raking them over the coals over all past scandals, and the Conservatives seem to be sidestepping any slander and merely discussing their platform.

The Liberals, meanwhile, are announcing spending initiatives, that they've already announced twice already (health care increases of $3billion which were previously announced in December and February, I believe, and sharing of gas taxes with municipalities, which came up last fall and again in the budget speech this spring). Personally, I find it pathetic, in that not only are they trying to bribe us with our own money but they're trying to make it seem like this is the first time they've offered us the bribe.

Re: the Canadian Senate.....The Conservatives are the only party to propose senate reform, and advocate an elected senate instead of the current appointed senate.

Unfortunately, there is no way I can cheer for the 'Lames, as I was born and bred in Edmonton, and will never give up on my Oilers. (but I'm not cheering for Tampa, either)

 

[Segnosaur]

The first week of the campaign draws to a close, and it looks like everyone is shooting at the Liberals. They're getting the NDP on them for all the cuts to government services while Paul Martin was minister of finance, the Bloc Quebecois is raking them over the coals over all past scandals, and the Conservatives seem to be sidestepping any slander and merely discussing their platform.

The conservatives did run into a problem yesterday when one of their members (Reid) suggested changing bilingualism laws. (I saw part of the story on CBC news, and to hear them talk about it, you'd think he suggested having all french people expelled from Canada or something.)

Things have gotten very messy, with the Liberals being blamed for all sorts of homeless deaths by the NDP because they cut subsidised housing (I think their claim is a bit suspect), and being accused by the conservatives for risking the lives of soldiers for not replacing the Sea Kings sooner (which I believe is an accurate statement).

What I find annoying is the recent Liberal ads suggesting that if you don't vote for them and vote for the Conservatives instead, you are somehow 'un-Canadian'.

The first week of the campaign draws to a close, and it looks like everyone is shooting at the Liberals. They're getting the NDP on them for all the cuts to government services while Paul Martin was minister of finance, the Bloc Quebecois is raking them over the coals over all past scandals, and the Conservatives seem to be sidestepping any slander and merely discussing their platform.

Re: the Canadian Senate.....The Conservatives are the only party to propose senate reform, and advocate an elected senate instead of the current appointed senate.

Is that still in their platform? I agree that the senate needs reform, but I figured the conservatives would be very cautious not to suggest anything too radical that might scare off voters.