Ignatieff has, today, killed the chance to remove the Conservatives from power. He has killed the coalition by supporting the Conservative budget, and that means that the NDP will no longer enter coalition with the Liberals. With the coalition option off the table, then the only choice when Harper falls is an election, which the Liberals are unprepared to fight and have no money to fight it with. This means we are set for a re-run of Milquetoast Dion propping up the Conservatives while they run roughshod over Canadian values.
Iggy has failed the test of leadership, and has ended that moment of hope that there was in late 2008.
Showing posts with label Coalition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coalition. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Budget, and the Coalition's Last Chance
Tomorrow, Finance Minister and Flim-Flam-Artist-in-Chief Jim Flaherty will deliver the federal budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Much of the budget has already been leaked, in defiance of long-standing trends of budget confidentiality. The Conservatives appear to be set to spend like drunken sailors on a variety of areas. The spending seems, for the most part, to be focussed on good things (though as the NDP has been pointing out all day, the Conservatives can't really be trusted to deliver on this stuff, since they keep re-announcing the same money over and over). Concerningly, however, is that it has been indicated that the budget will contain broad-based tax cuts.
As I wrote a while ago, tax cuts are not stimulus, no matter how much the government would like us to believe the Chicago School, neo-liberal orthodoxy that if you free the market, greater prosperity will follow. That has been proven time and again, from the Southern Cone of Latin America to the post-Communist economies of the former Soviet Block, to the former Asian Tigers. Neo-liberal orthodoxy produces fantastic riches for an elite few, but produces planned misery for the vast bulk of the population. Neo-liberalism produces a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, and produces the most astonishingly unequal societies on the face of the earth.
If this budget includes broad-based tax cuts, those will not be stimulus, those will drag the federal curent accounts budget into a structural deficit. Reducing revenue is the most astonishingly inappropriate thing for the government to do when major fiscal stimulus is needed.
The Liberals have this one opportunity to prove that they have grown a spine. If they vote for this budget, and for the con artists who have put it together, they will have proven themselves cowards, shrinking in the face of Conservative lies and bullying. However if they vote against, they will have proven a willingness to find an alternative within our constitutional structures, and without forcing the expense of another election on the people of Canada. Of course, all of that depends on the Governor General not disgracing herself again when Harper asks her for dissolution and a new election.
If the Liberals knuckle under, that will be it for the coalition. There is no point in any kind of cooperation with a Liberal Party that is staggering drunkenly to the right under Michael Ignatieff who is quickly proving once again that the Liberals will say anything and stand for nothing.
Tomorrow will be interesting.
As I wrote a while ago, tax cuts are not stimulus, no matter how much the government would like us to believe the Chicago School, neo-liberal orthodoxy that if you free the market, greater prosperity will follow. That has been proven time and again, from the Southern Cone of Latin America to the post-Communist economies of the former Soviet Block, to the former Asian Tigers. Neo-liberal orthodoxy produces fantastic riches for an elite few, but produces planned misery for the vast bulk of the population. Neo-liberalism produces a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, and produces the most astonishingly unequal societies on the face of the earth.
If this budget includes broad-based tax cuts, those will not be stimulus, those will drag the federal curent accounts budget into a structural deficit. Reducing revenue is the most astonishingly inappropriate thing for the government to do when major fiscal stimulus is needed.
The Liberals have this one opportunity to prove that they have grown a spine. If they vote for this budget, and for the con artists who have put it together, they will have proven themselves cowards, shrinking in the face of Conservative lies and bullying. However if they vote against, they will have proven a willingness to find an alternative within our constitutional structures, and without forcing the expense of another election on the people of Canada. Of course, all of that depends on the Governor General not disgracing herself again when Harper asks her for dissolution and a new election.
If the Liberals knuckle under, that will be it for the coalition. There is no point in any kind of cooperation with a Liberal Party that is staggering drunkenly to the right under Michael Ignatieff who is quickly proving once again that the Liberals will say anything and stand for nothing.
Tomorrow will be interesting.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Iggy to be Liberal Leader
Democracy in the Liberal Party is dead today. Bob Rae has dropped out, and Iggy will be crowned interim leader, to become permanent leader in May. He has not had to face a single vote from the membership of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Iggy is a right-winger, who believes that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, and that torture can be justified. I have great qualms about the coalition going forward with him as leader. He is a clone of King Stephen on a lot of things, even down to the condescending attitude. The Liberals will be led by the Man Who Would Be Philosopher King. The man who sees the coalition not as a way to represent the will of 62% of Canadians but rather as a tool to extract concessions from the Conservatives.
I don't know if the coalition can go with Iggy the Hawk in charge of the Liberals.
Of course, Iggy leading the Liberal Party is in the partisan best interests of the NDP. He will draw CPC-LPC swing voters, and drive LPC-NDP swing voters to the NDP. This may help the NDP gain seats in Atlantic Canada and in Ontario. At the same time, the LPC can gain seats from the CPC in Ontario and maybe from the BQ in Quebec. It may be enough to knock King Stephen off his throne in the Dictatorial Republic of Canada.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 41
Iggy is a right-winger, who believes that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea, and that torture can be justified. I have great qualms about the coalition going forward with him as leader. He is a clone of King Stephen on a lot of things, even down to the condescending attitude. The Liberals will be led by the Man Who Would Be Philosopher King. The man who sees the coalition not as a way to represent the will of 62% of Canadians but rather as a tool to extract concessions from the Conservatives.
I don't know if the coalition can go with Iggy the Hawk in charge of the Liberals.
Of course, Iggy leading the Liberal Party is in the partisan best interests of the NDP. He will draw CPC-LPC swing voters, and drive LPC-NDP swing voters to the NDP. This may help the NDP gain seats in Atlantic Canada and in Ontario. At the same time, the LPC can gain seats from the CPC in Ontario and maybe from the BQ in Quebec. It may be enough to knock King Stephen off his throne in the Dictatorial Republic of Canada.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 41
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Pro-Coalition Rally in Halifax
There was a great pro-coalition rally in Halifax today at Maritime Hall.
Here are some of the pictures:
My sign for the rally:
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 47
Here are some of the pictures:
My sign for the rally:
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 47
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Will He or Won't He
The question now is whether Harper will prorogue Parliament to avoid an official loss of the confidence of the House. I really hope he doesn't, both because I want to see the coalition come to pass and because if he does it will be a huge blow to parliamentary democracy.
The fundamental principle of parliamentary democracy is that the government remains in office so long as it enjoys the confidence of the Parliament, and in Canada that means the House of Commons. The corollary of this principle is that the executive branch governs with the Parliament, so that if the confidence is lost, the Parliament may signal that that is so, and the government leaves office. If the Governor-General grants Harper a prorogation, the executive will functionally be governing without Parliament, in violation of the basic principles of Parliamentary democracy.
Prorogation, for those that don't know, ends the session of the Parliament, until it is recalled for a new session with a new Speech from the Throne. This kills all bills on the order paper and sends MPs back to their constituencies. Essentially, the legislative branch of government is dismissed, while the executive continues to govern. There is no precedent in Canada for a prorogation so early in a first session of a Parliament, and no precedent for a prorogation before anything other than the motion approving the Speech from the Throne has passed the House.
If Harper obtains a prorogation from the Governor General, it will be a blatant admission that the government no longer enjoys the confidence of the House, and will represent a brazen abuse of the Prime Minister's power to advise the Governor-General on the convention and dismissal of Parliament. If there is a prorogation, it will be a clear statement that Harper's government is illegitimate, and governing in an anti-democratic and anti-constitutional manner.
So the question now is, as I posed above, will he or won't he. In the House today, Harper said that his government would take all legal means to avoid defeat (and some of his supporters in Alberta are committing sedition by saying they will take up arms if he falls). I take this to mean that he is threatening the coalition with a prorogation. I still don't know if he would do it though, given how massively illegitimate it would render his government.
I want to hear from everyone who reads this, do you think he will or won't? I'm interested in what you think regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum.
By the way, there are going to be rallies across the country on Thursday in support of the coalition for change. I'll be out in Halifax. You can find information on the rallies, including whether there is one in your neck of the woods at http://www.makeparliamentwork.com/.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 48
The fundamental principle of parliamentary democracy is that the government remains in office so long as it enjoys the confidence of the Parliament, and in Canada that means the House of Commons. The corollary of this principle is that the executive branch governs with the Parliament, so that if the confidence is lost, the Parliament may signal that that is so, and the government leaves office. If the Governor-General grants Harper a prorogation, the executive will functionally be governing without Parliament, in violation of the basic principles of Parliamentary democracy.
Prorogation, for those that don't know, ends the session of the Parliament, until it is recalled for a new session with a new Speech from the Throne. This kills all bills on the order paper and sends MPs back to their constituencies. Essentially, the legislative branch of government is dismissed, while the executive continues to govern. There is no precedent in Canada for a prorogation so early in a first session of a Parliament, and no precedent for a prorogation before anything other than the motion approving the Speech from the Throne has passed the House.
If Harper obtains a prorogation from the Governor General, it will be a blatant admission that the government no longer enjoys the confidence of the House, and will represent a brazen abuse of the Prime Minister's power to advise the Governor-General on the convention and dismissal of Parliament. If there is a prorogation, it will be a clear statement that Harper's government is illegitimate, and governing in an anti-democratic and anti-constitutional manner.
So the question now is, as I posed above, will he or won't he. In the House today, Harper said that his government would take all legal means to avoid defeat (and some of his supporters in Alberta are committing sedition by saying they will take up arms if he falls). I take this to mean that he is threatening the coalition with a prorogation. I still don't know if he would do it though, given how massively illegitimate it would render his government.
I want to hear from everyone who reads this, do you think he will or won't? I'm interested in what you think regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum.
By the way, there are going to be rallies across the country on Thursday in support of the coalition for change. I'll be out in Halifax. You can find information on the rallies, including whether there is one in your neck of the woods at http://www.makeparliamentwork.com/.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 48
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Coalition Bloggers
There is a growing network of bloggers out there who are supporting the Liberal-NDP coalition. I'm happy to be one of them.
Ordinarily, I have my qualms about working with the Liberals. They tend to govern as technocratic, corporatist and coldly capitalistic. Their history in government is distressingly similar on fiscal issues to that of the Conservative Party. The difference comes on social issues. While the Liberals may have to be dragged kicking and screaming to modern positions on issues like equal marriage and a woman's right to choose, at least once they get put in the right place on those issues they have a tendency to stay there. Whether this is reflective of the Liberal Party's congenital institutional inertia or not is hard to say, but at least it happens. The Conservatives may be temporarily dragged to a semi-modern position (i.e. equal marriage is a closed issue), but they have a tendency to back-track when we aren't looking, for example bill C-484, the attempt to bestow rights on the collection of cells known as as a foetus.
I find myself in a mirror image position to that of Jason Cherniak. He is a fiscal conservative, and self-identified blue Liberal. Yet he endorses the coalition because the alternative is Stephen Harper. I find myself thinking the same way. I am a socialist, and on the left of the NDP. But I support this coalition, because a) it gets us the most left-wing government we've had in a very long time, and b) because it isn't Stephen Harper.
Harper has done incalculable damage to the institutions of Canadian government, from turning standing committees of the House of Commons into three-ring circuses, to abusing the requirement of confidence to instituting sweeping policy changes without debate in the House through orders in council and the discretion of ministers of the Crown. If nothing else, the Liberals have a respect for the institutions of this country that the Conservatives lack. The NDP does as well. We (and I) may want to see the Senate abolished, as an example, but we believe that while it is in existence it has important work to do. We believe that the courts of this country should not be packed with partisan judges picked for their ideology. We believe that government can be a force for good.
If people from blue Liberals to socialists can support this deal, I believe that this is an indication that it will have wide support in Canada, Conservative hysterics and freeping of call-in shows and Internet forums notwithstanding. To show my support, I've added the badge that now appears at the top of the right hand column of my blog. Eventually, there will also be a website (coalitionbloggers.ca). If you want to contribute to the discussion about what that site should do or be, feel free to post comments either here, or on Dipper Chick. If you are a blogger supportive of the coalition, I urge you to add the badge to your blog as well. The code can be found at the link above.
We have to remember that what the coalition is doing is legal and constitutional, but more over it is both ethical and moral. We are faced by a regressive Conservative government instituting policy direct from the Reform Party platform of the mid-1990s, none of which was mentioned in the election campaign. The CPC may have withdrawn their attempts to eliminate public electoral funding and the right to strike of public sector workers, but they are still trying to legislate away the gains of a decade and a half for women employed in the public service, and if we let them off the hook this time, you can bet that those other measures will be back.
Now is not the time for half-measures. We must be resolute, and we must be strong. Now is manifestly the time for actions, and a better way forward is in our grasp. If we don't take it now, it will recede out of reach for years. Write to your MP and the Governor General (info@gg.ca). Let them know that you support the coalition. Remember the immortal words of Tommy Douglas: "courage, my friends. 'Tis not too late to make a better world." And never let anyone tell you it can't be done.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 49
Ordinarily, I have my qualms about working with the Liberals. They tend to govern as technocratic, corporatist and coldly capitalistic. Their history in government is distressingly similar on fiscal issues to that of the Conservative Party. The difference comes on social issues. While the Liberals may have to be dragged kicking and screaming to modern positions on issues like equal marriage and a woman's right to choose, at least once they get put in the right place on those issues they have a tendency to stay there. Whether this is reflective of the Liberal Party's congenital institutional inertia or not is hard to say, but at least it happens. The Conservatives may be temporarily dragged to a semi-modern position (i.e. equal marriage is a closed issue), but they have a tendency to back-track when we aren't looking, for example bill C-484, the attempt to bestow rights on the collection of cells known as as a foetus.
I find myself in a mirror image position to that of Jason Cherniak. He is a fiscal conservative, and self-identified blue Liberal. Yet he endorses the coalition because the alternative is Stephen Harper. I find myself thinking the same way. I am a socialist, and on the left of the NDP. But I support this coalition, because a) it gets us the most left-wing government we've had in a very long time, and b) because it isn't Stephen Harper.
Harper has done incalculable damage to the institutions of Canadian government, from turning standing committees of the House of Commons into three-ring circuses, to abusing the requirement of confidence to instituting sweeping policy changes without debate in the House through orders in council and the discretion of ministers of the Crown. If nothing else, the Liberals have a respect for the institutions of this country that the Conservatives lack. The NDP does as well. We (and I) may want to see the Senate abolished, as an example, but we believe that while it is in existence it has important work to do. We believe that the courts of this country should not be packed with partisan judges picked for their ideology. We believe that government can be a force for good.
If people from blue Liberals to socialists can support this deal, I believe that this is an indication that it will have wide support in Canada, Conservative hysterics and freeping of call-in shows and Internet forums notwithstanding. To show my support, I've added the badge that now appears at the top of the right hand column of my blog. Eventually, there will also be a website (coalitionbloggers.ca). If you want to contribute to the discussion about what that site should do or be, feel free to post comments either here, or on Dipper Chick. If you are a blogger supportive of the coalition, I urge you to add the badge to your blog as well. The code can be found at the link above.
We have to remember that what the coalition is doing is legal and constitutional, but more over it is both ethical and moral. We are faced by a regressive Conservative government instituting policy direct from the Reform Party platform of the mid-1990s, none of which was mentioned in the election campaign. The CPC may have withdrawn their attempts to eliminate public electoral funding and the right to strike of public sector workers, but they are still trying to legislate away the gains of a decade and a half for women employed in the public service, and if we let them off the hook this time, you can bet that those other measures will be back.
Now is not the time for half-measures. We must be resolute, and we must be strong. Now is manifestly the time for actions, and a better way forward is in our grasp. If we don't take it now, it will recede out of reach for years. Write to your MP and the Governor General (info@gg.ca). Let them know that you support the coalition. Remember the immortal words of Tommy Douglas: "courage, my friends. 'Tis not too late to make a better world." And never let anyone tell you it can't be done.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 49
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Coalition Deal Completed
The NDP and Liberals have reached a deal to form a coalition government, according to the CBC. According to this deal, the NDP will get 25% of the Cabinet seats, and will not get to name either the Deputy Prime Minister or the Finance Minister.
This is a good thing. I was hoping for a few more Cabinet seats (more like 33%), but this is good. This gives the chance to put in place a government working in the interests of Canadians unlike the hopelessly partisan and bully-boy Conservatives. Given the opportunity, this new government will bring in fiscal stimulus, and avoid the harms of a couple more years of Harper.
I'm not going to be focusing on the blatant illegalities of the taping of the NDP caucus meeting by the Conservatives. It is a sideshow they are setting up to try to distract from their completely flop of a fiscal update. I won't be distracted, and I urge the entire progressive community online not to get caught up in it either.
I'll have more information on the coalition deal as it emerges.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 51
This is a good thing. I was hoping for a few more Cabinet seats (more like 33%), but this is good. This gives the chance to put in place a government working in the interests of Canadians unlike the hopelessly partisan and bully-boy Conservatives. Given the opportunity, this new government will bring in fiscal stimulus, and avoid the harms of a couple more years of Harper.
I'm not going to be focusing on the blatant illegalities of the taping of the NDP caucus meeting by the Conservatives. It is a sideshow they are setting up to try to distract from their completely flop of a fiscal update. I won't be distracted, and I urge the entire progressive community online not to get caught up in it either.
I'll have more information on the coalition deal as it emerges.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 51
Canada Has Our Very Own Watergate
Buried in a CBC News story about how the Conservatives are moving up the date of the budget, we find this:
Even if criminal proceedings are not commenced against the dirty-tricks types in the Conservative Party, the Speaker should find the whole load of them to be in contempt of Parliament. Bugging the meetings of members is pretty much the definition of breaching the Parliamentary privileges of MPs.
The Harper government is inept, dishonest, desperate, and now criminal. When the Conservatives admit to a crime to cling to power, it is over. THROW THE BUMS OUT! COALITION NOW!
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 51
The Conservatives intercepting a telephone call is caught neatly under s. 184(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada which reads:The Conservatives, meanwhile, have released details of an NDP caucus meeting they say was held in the form of a conference call on Saturday.
The Tories say they released a portion of the transcript on Sunday because it shows the NDP was working very closely with the Bloc long before last Thursday's economic update to replace the government.
"Let's just say we have strategies," NDP Leader Jack Layton said during the call. "This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't been made with the Bloc to lock them in early because you couldn't put three people together in … three hours. The first part was done a long time ago. I won't go into details."
NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair said at a news conference that nothing in the NDP-BQ talks is any different than the contingency planning Stephen Harper himself engaged in with the two parties during the last Liberal minority in 2004.
He said the meeting, whose co-ordinates were inadvertently given to a Tory, were illegally recorded and broadcast and that the party has consulted two experts including a legal specialist for an opinion on whether the Criminal Code was violated.
184. (1) Every one who, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, wilfully intercepts a private communication is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
This is the Harper Conservatives bugging their political opponents. And who knows how long they have been doing this for. This is criminal. This is Watergate-type. Clearly the high-level Conservatives knew about this, and authorized both the bugging and the release of the information. They knew about it, and by authorizing the release of the recording, they abetted the offence after the fact. If Harper knew about and authorized it, he is equally guilty and should go on trial.
Even if criminal proceedings are not commenced against the dirty-tricks types in the Conservative Party, the Speaker should find the whole load of them to be in contempt of Parliament. Bugging the meetings of members is pretty much the definition of breaching the Parliamentary privileges of MPs.
The Harper government is inept, dishonest, desperate, and now criminal. When the Conservatives admit to a crime to cling to power, it is over. THROW THE BUMS OUT! COALITION NOW!
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 51
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Harper Lies About the Constitution
Shame on Mr. Harper. Last night, at his specially constructed and pseudo-Presidential podium in the foyer of the House of Commons (does he really think he is too good to go to the Press Gallery as every PM before him has done?), Steveo lied to the people of Canada.
He got up on his hind legs and started spewing nonsense about how the opposition could not form a coalition and govern without an election. This is bullshit, and what is worse I'm sure he knows it.
The King-Byng affair, as well as numerous precedents in both the provincial legislatures and the British Parliament, affirms that the Queen or her representative has every right in a situation where the government loses the confidence of the House during the first sitting of the Parliament to ask an opposition party leader to try to assemble a government that can gain the confidence of the House. This is the whole point of our parliamentary system, and it is why the opposition is known as both "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" and the "government-in-waiting."
Steveo has unleashed his con-bots across the Internet, all screeching the same lines about a coalition government being anti-democratic and even anti-constitutional. This is part of a coordinated attempt to politically undermine the coming coalition government, but it is being done by lying to the people of Canada.
Part of the reason for the ferocity, and mendacity, of this response to the looming collapse of the government is surely fear. The Conservatives very likely cooked the books in the financial statement if not before, and they are deadly afraid of the opposition getting into the Ministry of Finance and finding the documents to prove it. The Conservatives have, in their three years in control of the government, surely lied and covered up multitudinous sins. Once the opposition gets in there, they are all coming out, and the Conservatives know that it will be doled out piecemeal, and they will be completely sunk in the next election. And so they are afraid.
And the result of that fear is the lies being spouted to the Canadian public by Conservatives from Steveo on down. This government lies to the public, and if for no other reason it thereby renders itself unfit to govern.
Update: The Con-bots now have their talking points for call-in shows. The CPC has a whole site set up for their partisans who are apparently either too stupid to think what to say for themselves or too untrustworthy to be allowed to come up with their own lines. You can find the CPC talking-points site here. I got their talking-points for the coalition negotiations (yes I was bad and put in a fake postal code), and here they are:
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 52
He got up on his hind legs and started spewing nonsense about how the opposition could not form a coalition and govern without an election. This is bullshit, and what is worse I'm sure he knows it.
The King-Byng affair, as well as numerous precedents in both the provincial legislatures and the British Parliament, affirms that the Queen or her representative has every right in a situation where the government loses the confidence of the House during the first sitting of the Parliament to ask an opposition party leader to try to assemble a government that can gain the confidence of the House. This is the whole point of our parliamentary system, and it is why the opposition is known as both "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" and the "government-in-waiting."
Steveo has unleashed his con-bots across the Internet, all screeching the same lines about a coalition government being anti-democratic and even anti-constitutional. This is part of a coordinated attempt to politically undermine the coming coalition government, but it is being done by lying to the people of Canada.
Part of the reason for the ferocity, and mendacity, of this response to the looming collapse of the government is surely fear. The Conservatives very likely cooked the books in the financial statement if not before, and they are deadly afraid of the opposition getting into the Ministry of Finance and finding the documents to prove it. The Conservatives have, in their three years in control of the government, surely lied and covered up multitudinous sins. Once the opposition gets in there, they are all coming out, and the Conservatives know that it will be doled out piecemeal, and they will be completely sunk in the next election. And so they are afraid.
And the result of that fear is the lies being spouted to the Canadian public by Conservatives from Steveo on down. This government lies to the public, and if for no other reason it thereby renders itself unfit to govern.
Update: The Con-bots now have their talking points for call-in shows. The CPC has a whole site set up for their partisans who are apparently either too stupid to think what to say for themselves or too untrustworthy to be allowed to come up with their own lines. You can find the CPC talking-points site here. I got their talking-points for the coalition negotiations (yes I was bad and put in a fake postal code), and here they are:
Not only is it stupid and inane, it is full of lies.Opposition lacks mandate to take power
- Is anyone else outraged by what the Opposition Parties are doing in Ottawa?
- We’re not even two months removed from the last election, and a group of backroom politicians are going to pick who the Prime Minister is. Canadians didn’t vote for this person. We don’t even know who this person will be.
- Not a single voter voted for a Liberal-NDP coalition. Certainly not a single voter voted for the Liberals to form a coalition with the separatists in the Bloc.
- Add – what’s worse the Liberals even promised that there wouldn’t be a coalition with the NDP – this is all about power, all about money and they don’t even want to face the voters
- This is what bothers me the most. The Conservatives won the election. The Opposition keeps saying that the Conservatives have to respect the will of the voters that this is a minority and so on. …how about Liberals, NDP and Bloc respecting the will of the voters when they said “YOU LOSE”.
- And what’s this going to do to the economy. I’m sorry, I don’t care how desperate the Liberals are – giving socialists (Jack Layton) and separatists (Gilles Duceppe) a veto over every decision in government – that is a recipe for total economic disaster.
- Here is what is bothering me about all of this backroom opposition coalition talk.
- Sure it bothers me that parties Canadian rejected are trying to seize power through the back door.
- But how more phony could these guys be? I mean, I follow the news, virtually every single day you have Harper or Flaherty out there telegraphing exactly what they plan to do with the economy. And not once did you hear the Liberals, NDP or separatists talking about toppling the government in response.
- No – do you know what set this off. When Flaherty said he was going to take taxpayer-funded subsidies away from the opposition. Now there is a reason to try and overturn an election– because the Conservatives the audacity to say “Hey, it’s a recession, maybe you should take your nose out of the trough.”
- And I wish the media would be more clear on this point – the opposition aren’t being singled out by this fact the Conservatives stand to lose the most money of all. The only difference is that Canadians are voluntarily giving money the Conservatives, so they don’t need taxpayer handouts. The only reason the opposition would be hurt more is because nobody wants to donate to them. They should be putting their efforts towards fixing that problem.
- I don’t want another election. But what I want even less is a surprise backroom Prime Minister whom I never even had the opportunity to vote for or against. What an insult to democracy.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 52
Friday, November 28, 2008
Harper Scampers to Save His Government
Craven Stephen Harper, the true small-man of Confederation has pushed back the opposition day scheduled for Monday by a week in a desperate attempt to save his government that is suddenly on the rocks. Flim-Flam Flaherty's economic update included more poison pills than the opposition could ever have been rationally expected to swallow, including not only the elimination of public campaign financing, but also a frontal attack on collective bargaining rights and the equal rights of women.
Flaherty took union busting to the next level, declaring that the government would use the power of the Crown to roll back collective bargaining and arbitral gains on wage increases, and eliminate the right to strike over wages until 2010-11. Not only is this piece of legislation mean spirited in the extreme, it is quite possibly illegal in light of the Supreme Court decision made last year that overturned BC's Bill 29 which tried to do much the same thing. Workers have a right to the gains they have made, and they have the right to withhold labour over whatever they please.
The government has also made a frontal assault on the pay equity of women, by stating in the economic update that pay equity would not be retroactive, and the right to recourse to the Canadian Human Rights Commission would be removed. This is insane. In the years since the courts forced the government into pay equity, this is the biggest attempt to go back on what was ordered. I don't know where the government gets off trying to eliminate the rights of women retroactively.
This stuff is red meat right out of the reform party platforms of the mid-1990s. This is our "moderate" Prime Minister. The opposition parties were never going to accept this, and it was a red flag. This is our government's way of kicking their opponents when they are down, like a bully on the school yard. We are being governed by people who behave like maladjusted eight year olds.
Dipper Chick summed up my feelings about the coalition quite nicely:
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53
Flaherty took union busting to the next level, declaring that the government would use the power of the Crown to roll back collective bargaining and arbitral gains on wage increases, and eliminate the right to strike over wages until 2010-11. Not only is this piece of legislation mean spirited in the extreme, it is quite possibly illegal in light of the Supreme Court decision made last year that overturned BC's Bill 29 which tried to do much the same thing. Workers have a right to the gains they have made, and they have the right to withhold labour over whatever they please.
The government has also made a frontal assault on the pay equity of women, by stating in the economic update that pay equity would not be retroactive, and the right to recourse to the Canadian Human Rights Commission would be removed. This is insane. In the years since the courts forced the government into pay equity, this is the biggest attempt to go back on what was ordered. I don't know where the government gets off trying to eliminate the rights of women retroactively.
This stuff is red meat right out of the reform party platforms of the mid-1990s. This is our "moderate" Prime Minister. The opposition parties were never going to accept this, and it was a red flag. This is our government's way of kicking their opponents when they are down, like a bully on the school yard. We are being governed by people who behave like maladjusted eight year olds.
Dipper Chick summed up my feelings about the coalition quite nicely:
A month or so ago, I never thought that there would be a set of circumstances that would make me supportive of the NDP forming a coalition with the Liberals. But here we are.This coalition is necessary, but Stephen Harper will do everything he can to avoid it. He's going to take the week of grace he fabricated for himself and try to turn the Canadian people against his bully-boy government. I have faith that the Canadian people will see through the thing tissue of rationalizations, excuses and lies that Harper is putting forth.
...
I am not feeling the slightest bit complacent about any of this. The Conservatives need to be stopped. I still don't trust the Liberals, and I still believe that an NDP government is what Canadians really need. But right here and now, with things being as they are, a Liberal-NDP coalition is the best option.
My apprehension comes from wondering if the Liberals can be fair while negotiating the terms of the coalition. I have a hard time believing that they can put their sense of entitlement aside and offer the NDP a significant enough role to form a true coalition. But if they can come to an agreement that is fair, I say take Harper down.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53
Coalition Government Looks Increasingly Likely
The news is breaking today that Jean Chretien and Ed Broadbent have been brokering the coalition talks between the Liberals and NDP. These two elder statesmen are working together to produce a workable coalition government that will be supported by the BQ.
Various opposition MPs have been sounding increasingly sure that the government will fall next week, including a statement by NDP Deputy Leader and Finance Critic Thomas Mulcair during question period today. If the Conservatives don't blink, they will get voted out of power by the House.
Even if the Conservatives do blink on the campaign financing, they may get voted out anyway, due to the failure to provide fiscal stimulus in the economic update. At this point, a coalition is entirely preferable to any Conservative government at all.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53
Various opposition MPs have been sounding increasingly sure that the government will fall next week, including a statement by NDP Deputy Leader and Finance Critic Thomas Mulcair during question period today. If the Conservatives don't blink, they will get voted out of power by the House.
Even if the Conservatives do blink on the campaign financing, they may get voted out anyway, due to the failure to provide fiscal stimulus in the economic update. At this point, a coalition is entirely preferable to any Conservative government at all.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53
Coalition Talk Intensifies in Ottawa
The talk of a coalition government between the Liberals and NDP supported by the BQ is intensifying in Ottawa, with reports now surfacing of second-stage talks taking place, including between the opposition leaders personally. There looks to be one big bump on the road to a centre-left coalition government: the Dion factor. The NDP and BQ have signalled that they will not support a government that installs Dion as leader. This has led to an effort within the LPC to remove Dion as a leader early, and install an interim leader to see the LPC through until the May election. The problem is whether the country is prepared to accept an interim Prime Minister.
I see one way to resolve this problem, though it is admittedly massively unlikely to happen: have Jack Layton lead the government and become Prime Minister. He is a leader solidly in control of his party, and he isn't going anywhere. He has high positive ratings with the Canadian public, and is generally well respected. This is, of course, unlikely to happen because the Liberals know that letting Layton be Prime Minister is almost as deadly to their long-term interests as allowing the end of the per-vote subsidy. It would bestow huge legitimacy on the NDP federally, and cut further into the remaining base of left-liberals in the Liberal Party of Canada.
At the very least, the NDP needs to get Cabinet positions out of this deal, and Jack Layton needs to become Deputy Prime Minister and hold an important Cabinet portfolio (Finance would be good but is unlikely, Industry might be more reasonable). This is an opportunity to give a voice to the 62% of voters who did not choose the Conservative Party of Canada to govern this country. This is also a chance to prove that Parliamentary but not electoral coalitions can work as well, which is a key part of a proportional representation system.
As Dr. Dawg put it on his blog, "Form a coalition. That is all." As cliche as it is to say, the Chinese character for "crisis" incorporates both "danger" and "opportunity." And opportunity is knocking.
Update: CBC is running a poll on the cuts to democracy, which you can find here. It's currently being freeped (800+ anti-democracy votes in the past two hours, when it was running even just before then). I encourage everyone who reads this and cares about the issues to counter-freep it.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53
I see one way to resolve this problem, though it is admittedly massively unlikely to happen: have Jack Layton lead the government and become Prime Minister. He is a leader solidly in control of his party, and he isn't going anywhere. He has high positive ratings with the Canadian public, and is generally well respected. This is, of course, unlikely to happen because the Liberals know that letting Layton be Prime Minister is almost as deadly to their long-term interests as allowing the end of the per-vote subsidy. It would bestow huge legitimacy on the NDP federally, and cut further into the remaining base of left-liberals in the Liberal Party of Canada.
At the very least, the NDP needs to get Cabinet positions out of this deal, and Jack Layton needs to become Deputy Prime Minister and hold an important Cabinet portfolio (Finance would be good but is unlikely, Industry might be more reasonable). This is an opportunity to give a voice to the 62% of voters who did not choose the Conservative Party of Canada to govern this country. This is also a chance to prove that Parliamentary but not electoral coalitions can work as well, which is a key part of a proportional representation system.
As Dr. Dawg put it on his blog, "Form a coalition. That is all." As cliche as it is to say, the Chinese character for "crisis" incorporates both "danger" and "opportunity." And opportunity is knocking.
Update: CBC is running a poll on the cuts to democracy, which you can find here. It's currently being freeped (800+ anti-democracy votes in the past two hours, when it was running even just before then). I encourage everyone who reads this and cares about the issues to counter-freep it.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 53
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Conservatives Pushing Forward With Cuts to Democracy
According to Norman Spector, the Conservative attempt to repeal democracy (and thanks to Devin Johnston for that wonderful phrase) will be put to a vote before the scheduled rising of the House of Commons on Dec. 12. The Conservatives are trying to take advantage of the short time frame since the last election to push through this assault on democracy.
Is this supposed to be yet another example of Stephen Harper's ability as a brilliant political tactician? He has forced the opposition parties into a corner, from which there is no escaping. This policy would cripple the NDP and finish the Liberals and BQ. No matter that it is confidence, they cannot vote for this, they cannot let it pass.
Harper is taking an awful risk with this proposal. He is gambling that:
If the opposition parties find some steel in their spines and fight this, they may force the government to back down and remove it from the economic update. That is the best possible result at this point, because we don't need a constitutional crisis at the same time as an economic crisis.
I encourage everyone who reads this to get in touch with their MP as I have done to let MPs know that this is not on, and that Canadians support public election financing, and that we support democracy.
Update: Talk of a coalition government is swirling around Parliament Hill in the wake of this plan. I will be very interested to see what comes out of this, since the government could fall on an unrelated Ways and Means motion as early as tomorrow.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 55
Is this supposed to be yet another example of Stephen Harper's ability as a brilliant political tactician? He has forced the opposition parties into a corner, from which there is no escaping. This policy would cripple the NDP and finish the Liberals and BQ. No matter that it is confidence, they cannot vote for this, they cannot let it pass.
Harper is taking an awful risk with this proposal. He is gambling that:
- The opposition parties don't have the guts to bring his government down over this; and
- The Governor General wont risk a repeat of the King-Byng Affair by refusing him dissolution and giving the Liberals a chance to govern with the support of the NDP and BQ.
If the opposition parties find some steel in their spines and fight this, they may force the government to back down and remove it from the economic update. That is the best possible result at this point, because we don't need a constitutional crisis at the same time as an economic crisis.
I encourage everyone who reads this to get in touch with their MP as I have done to let MPs know that this is not on, and that Canadians support public election financing, and that we support democracy.
Update: Talk of a coalition government is swirling around Parliament Hill in the wake of this plan. I will be very interested to see what comes out of this, since the government could fall on an unrelated Ways and Means motion as early as tomorrow.
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 55
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