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Canadian Politics
17 years ago
General
Well there's been a real political storm up here since Thursday of last week, but first a bit of history...
Unlike the US, Canada has four major parties consisting of the Conservatives, Liberals, New Democratic Party, and the Bloc. Traditionally the main rivalry is between the Cons and Libs, with NDP taking quite a chunk of the vote and the Bloc being a Quebec only party acting in the interests of Quebec.
Being a multi-party system, minorities happen. In fact, Canada has had minority governments for a good chunk of the last decade. A ruling minority party needs the support of at least one other party to remain in power. In our most recent election which happened in October, the Cons where re-elected with another minority with about 143 of the 308 seats.
Since Thursday's fiscal update the opposition has declared that they have 'lost confidence' in the ruling party, since then they have engaged in talks with the other parties. Today they emerged with a signed agreement, the Libs and NDP will form a coalition with the support of the Bloc, and with this agreement in place the three parties are now preparing to vote down the government at the earliest opportunity, one such being a non-confidence vote scheduled on December 8th.
Should the government be voted down, the parties will take the agreement to the Governor General and request to form a coalition government, the GG can take one of the following actions:
A)Agrees to allow the coalition to take place
B)Denies the request to form a coalition and force an election
My question: What are your thoughts on this situation? And, should the Cons get voted down, which scenario would you rather see?
Unlike the US, Canada has four major parties consisting of the Conservatives, Liberals, New Democratic Party, and the Bloc. Traditionally the main rivalry is between the Cons and Libs, with NDP taking quite a chunk of the vote and the Bloc being a Quebec only party acting in the interests of Quebec.
Being a multi-party system, minorities happen. In fact, Canada has had minority governments for a good chunk of the last decade. A ruling minority party needs the support of at least one other party to remain in power. In our most recent election which happened in October, the Cons where re-elected with another minority with about 143 of the 308 seats.
Since Thursday's fiscal update the opposition has declared that they have 'lost confidence' in the ruling party, since then they have engaged in talks with the other parties. Today they emerged with a signed agreement, the Libs and NDP will form a coalition with the support of the Bloc, and with this agreement in place the three parties are now preparing to vote down the government at the earliest opportunity, one such being a non-confidence vote scheduled on December 8th.
Should the government be voted down, the parties will take the agreement to the Governor General and request to form a coalition government, the GG can take one of the following actions:
A)Agrees to allow the coalition to take place
B)Denies the request to form a coalition and force an election
My question: What are your thoughts on this situation? And, should the Cons get voted down, which scenario would you rather see?
*insert popcorn-munching icon here*
You're right though, time will tell! And fun talking to you.
I've seen a huge variety of numbers and surveys, it's hard to know which ones are scientific and which ones aren't.