{"id":324,"date":"2008-12-02T01:19:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T01:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/12\/02\/in-which-i-once-again-leave-myself-open-to-a-schooling-in-canadian-politics-from-people-who-actually-know-what-theyre-talking-about\/"},"modified":"2008-12-02T01:19:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T01:19:00","slug":"in-which-i-once-again-leave-myself-open-to-a-schooling-in-canadian-politics-from-people-who-actually-know-what-theyre-talking-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/12\/02\/in-which-i-once-again-leave-myself-open-to-a-schooling-in-canadian-politics-from-people-who-actually-know-what-theyre-talking-about\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I once again leave myself open to a schooling in Canadian politics, from people who actually know what they’re talking about"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Science Canada blog <\/a>has directed me to some<\/a> very<\/a> interesting<\/a> articles<\/a> recently<\/a>, and as a result I had a whole post planned on how the new US government might impact on Canadian environmental policies.<\/p>\n

BUT!<\/p>\n

Much more immediately interesting things are afoot in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

You might remember that our recent election resulted in a minority Conservative government, holding less than 40% of the popular vote (see comments from Okham<\/span>, ScientistMother<\/span>, Chall<\/span>, Dr A and Dr J on this thread <\/a>for an interesting discussion about the shortcomings of our electoral system).<\/p>\n

Rather than engaging and being accountable to the opposition parties, the Conservatives tried to push through legislation<\/a> that would cripple their ability to fund their future election campaigns. (This was not the only contentious part of the legislation, but seems to have provided a convenient tipping point; ScientistMother<\/a> has much more detail in her post).<\/p>\n

This plan has spectacularly backfired. The two largest opposition parties (who split the left-wing vote in the election, leading to our current situation) have now solidified a formal coalition<\/a>, and plan to try and overthrow the minority government next Monday, with the support of the Bloc Quebecois.<\/p>\n

As I understand it, the possible outcomes are as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Harper (Conservative Prime Minister) asks the Governor General <\/a>for permission to suspend parliament, thereby avoiding the confidence vote that would bring down his government.<\/li>\n
  2. The Liberal-NDP<\/span> coalition defeats the government in the confidence vote, and the Governor<\/span> General grants them permission to form a new government with no election.<\/li>\n
  3. The Liberal-NDP<\/span> coalition defeats the government in the confidence vote, and the Governor<\/span> General dissolves<\/span> parliament to instigate a new election.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The political commentators seem to be leaning towards option 2, with option 3 as back-up in case the coalition fails.<\/p>\n

    Given that the popular vote consistently shows that Canada is not a naturally Conservative country, uniting the left seems like a logical and perfectly acceptable step to me. Some might argue that it would have been better to do this before <\/em>the election, thereby saving us all a lot of hassle. I might agree… right now I’m just enjoying the look on Harper’s smug little face. Karma’s a bitch, Stephen.<\/p>\n

    I was saying to some friends recently that I’d love to be Governor General (and as a female immigrant I’d have a decent shot, if the last two incumbents are any guide), given that there seem to be lots of perks and a massive pension without any real responsibility. But right now, Micha\u00eblle<\/span> Jean<\/a> seems to be the most powerful person in the country.<\/p>\n

    It’s all very interesting. And still <\/em>no mention of this story on the BBC international news <\/a>website. For shame, BBC, for shame.<\/p>\n

    —————<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Science Canada blog has directed me to some very interesting articles recently, and as a result I had a whole post planned on how the new US government might impact on Canadian environmental policies. BUT! Much more immediately interesting … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,47,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-environment","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}