Categories
Politics

Understanding the Proposed Coalition Government

“Two months ago Canadians voted in a general election. They made a clear choice.” — “And they [the voters] certainly did not give either the Liberals or the NDP a mandate to govern with the Separatists, the very people who want to destroy Canada.”
Jim Prentice, Conservative Party MP, Calgary Centre-North, emphasis mine (full text)

“With less than two months since the return to power of the Conservative Party, the Liberals, NDP and Quebec separatists, have plotted to overrule the democratic choice of Canadians by forming a coalition lead by Stephane Dion, to replace the duly elected Conservative government of Stephen Harper.”

Rob Anders, Conservative Party MP, Calgary West, emphasis added (full text)

“Please help us make it clear that this is NOT what Canadians voted for on October 14 by signing and circulating the attached petition.”
Rick Casson, Conservative Party MP, Lethbridge, emphasis mine (full text)

It’s pretty clear that conservative MPs know that Canadians should get a legal government which follows the ideals that the majority of Canadians voted for— and one that doesn’t want to see Canada split with Québec.

I have news for you, Conservative MPs. You are MAKING the case for a coalition government.

FACT: The majority of voting Canadians, almost 62%, DID NOT VOTE FOR A CONSERVATIVE PARTY GOVERNMENT.
2008 Canadian Vote Distribution

The chart shows Conservatives won more votes than any other single party. It also shows that a larger majority of Canadians voted for the alternatives.

This next chart demonstrates the seat distribution between the parties.

2008 Parliamentary Seating Distribution

Notice how even though the Conservatives got 38% of the vote, because of the way our system is setup, they got 47% of the seats. That’s a difference of nearly 10% between the way Canadians voted and the power given to the Conservative Party. Doesn’t sound very democratic, does it?

That’s the system we have in Canada; Conservatives took a minority government and are the legal governing party. However, it’s possible to lose that status, legally.

Canadians vote for an MP in their own riding. Unlike our American counterparts, we don’t vote for a President, but our leader, the Prime Minister, is chosen when MPs gets together with other like-minded MPs, choose who should lead their party, and hold more seats than any other group of like-minded MPs (ie. other parties). If the Prime Minister maintains the confidence of the House of Commons then he gets to remain Prime Minister.

If the House has a vote of confidence, and the party in power loses, then it’s up to the Governor General to call an election or— (and this is where things get interesting), she can decide to allow the other MPs to form a coalition government—two or more parties working together to govern and though not officially combining into a single party, agreeing to set aside their differences.

In order for the NDP and Liberals to combine and form a successful coalition government, they need the help of the Bloc Québécois, without them they only hold 114 seats. With the help of the Bloc’s 49 seats, it gives the coalition a total of 163 seats and enough power (53% of the seats) to decide that they are not happy with Stephen Harper as Prime Minister.

Canadian Parliament Seat Breakdown Left vs. Right

As a combined force, the progressively minded parties have the power to run government the way most Canadians want. Since a minority government, headed up by the Conservative Party, was also elected in 2006, one might wonder why propose a coalition now? Primarily because of some radical changes the Harper government was proposing to make to the way government operates and a lack of action on addressing the global economic recession, but also for many other reasons.

Harper realizes the danger he’s in of losing control, so one of the fear mongering techniques that he and other members of the Conservative Party have been propagating is that the coalition government is giving too much power to “THE SEPARATISTS”.

The agreement that the Bloc has made with the Liberal-NDP coalition DOES NOT grant them any cabinet seats. Thus they’ve effectively agreed to take sovereignty off the table for the next 18 months. Note that, even if that weren’t the case, support for the separatist movement in Quebec is extremely soft right now.

<strike>Quebec Libre</strike>

So if there really isn’t a danger of Quebec separating, or reviving a separatist movement, then what does the proposed coalition government mean for Canada?

  1. The war in Afghanistan – The NDP, Liberals, and Bloc each campaigned on policies to end combat missions in Afghanistan. Conservatives (when they finally got around to releasing their campaign plans a week before election) have decided to “stay the course”.
  2. The Economy – The NDP, Liberals, and Bloc want to follow the lessons learned in the Great Depression (think Keynesian economics) while the Conservatives prefer a laissez-faire approach, essentially deciding to wait things out.
  3. The Environment – The NDP, Liberals, and Bloc all campaigned on platforms of attempting to meet the Kyoto Accord targets. The Conservatives have never shown interest in protecting the environment and refuse to consider the world’s long term future.

When the Conservative Party demands that Canadians deserve the government they voted for, I agree.

When the Conservative Party demands that Canada’s leadership follow the ideals that the majority of Canadians voted for, I agree.

When the Conservative Party demands that we watch carefully to monitor separatist sentiment, do our best not to encourage it, and attempt to resolve conflicts as they arise, I agree.

But when the Conservative Party claims that the proposed coalition government does not also agree with all these things, it is more than being disingenuous, it’s an outright lie.

Categories
Politics

Canada’s (New) New Government

The Liberals and New Democrats signed an agreement Monday to form a coalition government, ousting Prime Minister Stephen Harper from power. If they are successful in forming their coalition, they have a pledge of support from the Bloc Québécois for the next 18 months.

A friend of mine wrote his entire contact list with this plea:

Putting Partisan politics aside for a moment. This coalition is not what we voted for 6 weeks ago. Please consider for a minute and think if you could be happy with a coalition that has to be supported by the Separatists Bloc Quebecois in order to survive. What is their price? I think that it could end up costing us our great nation. That is too high of a price. Even if you hate the Conservatives sign this petition and then go down to www.rallyforcanada.ca in your various locations on Saturday. We need to put partisan politics aside for the sake of our country. This is one of the most dangerous times since the 1995 referendum in my opinion.

A few points I’d like to make. First, when was the last time you heard the Bloc talk about separating? They are a mainstream party now, no longer focused on separating, but as being a uniquely Québécois party.

Honestly, I’m not sure a coalition government really is THAT bad. It worked here in Canada during the hard times of World War I and it will work during the hard times today.

Don’t fall for Harper’s fear mongering. The world isn’t going to end with Dion leading the way. And come May we’ll likely have Ignatieff leading the party, someone whom I’m much more comfortable with as a leader—mostly because Dion stumbles on his English, but the same can be said of Harper’s French.

I’m mad at the conservatives because they refused to tell the people their plans until a week before the election. Silly voters that don’t pay much attention to politics didn’t punish the conservatives sneaky methods instead they just voted for the status quo.

But pulling funding from the other parties is truly a sneaky, unjust, power hungry move that needs to be punished; you can bet Conservatives would be outraged if the shoe were on the other foot.

Harper’s made his bed, now he’s going to have to sleep in it. I don’t think we’re in danger at all, in fact I think Canadians should be excited at the prospect of getting leadership by a majority of MPs. They may not be from the same party, but they are MPs that a MAJORITY voted for.

Categories
Politics

Polling the World of Warcraft

I suppose there are going to be selection bias issues when polling players in the World of Warcraft, but nevertheless, the results are interesting and as election day is upon us, let’s hope that the election polls match all of the other polls we’ve been hearing about.

Hit play or watch Election Duel! at Youtube.

Oh and if you’re an eligible voter in the US elections, and have not voted today, STOP READING THIS WEBSITE AND GO VOTE!
(via)

Categories
Politics

Joe McCain’s 911 Call

While it shouldn’t affect anyone’s vote anyway, it must be extremely embarrassing for John McCain’s already faltering campaign.

On October 18th, at about 1:30am, John McCain’s brother was stuck in traffic. Instead of chilling out and just waiting to get through, he called 911. When told that 911 was only for emergencies, he dropped an f-bomb and hung up.

Here’s a snippet of the transcript:

Operator: Alexandria 911, state your emergency

Caller: Well, it’s not an emergency but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic’s coming the other way across the drawbridge?

Operator: Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic? (pause)

Caller: [Expletive] you. (caller hangs up)

The operator called the caller back and received this message: “Hi this is Joe McCain I can’t take this message now because I’m involved in a very important family political project. I hope on Nov. 4th we have elected John.

Then Joe decides to call back to complain about getting told off and then gets told off AGAIN for calling 911 for non-emergencies.

Hit play or watch Joe McCain calls 911 about a traffic jam on YouTube.

Categories
Art Politics

Hollywood Director Attack Ads

What if John Woo, Kevin Smith, and Wes Anderson directed political attack ads?

Hit play or watch Hollywood Director Attack Ads on YouTube.

I’m not much of a John Woo fan, but the other two were right on.

Categories
Art Politics

A Brighter Day

The Vote for Hope video was created at Ursa Minor Arts and Media in San Rafael, CA with chief animator James Curtis, using designs and direction from M.C. Yogi. It’s is an extremely well crafted video funded and supported by grassroots donations.

MC Yogi – Vote For Hope from MC YOGI on Vimeo.

Hit play or watch Vote for Hope on Vimeo.

About the video:

With the 2008 presidential election, Americans face a pivotal choice between not just two candidates, but two paradigms. We need someone who understands the complexity of our time. Someone who believes in investing in renewable energy, in education, in women’s rights, in civil rights, in healthcare for Americans. Someone who believes in dealing with global issues with diplomacy so we can restore our respect in the world. Barack Obama represents the change we need and can lead us into a brighter future.

Vote For Hope was written to encourage and inspire the hip hop generation and everyone to get involved, and contribute their time, energy, creativity, and other resources to be the change they want to see in the world. We have been inspired by the artistic and musical contributions that have been pouring out across the nation in support of Barack Obama’s campaign. Vote for Hope is our offering to this creative movement. It is our way of adding our small voice to the collective voice of millions of Americans calling for a change.

(via)

Categories
Politics

The Canadian Election 2008

I went to the Environment & Education Forum at the Lethbridge College yesterday evening for the “last chance to grill [my] federal election candidates”.

I was unimpressed with the fact that only three parties showed up to debate (how does the green party expect to be taken seriously, when their candidate doesn’t show up).

The NDP’s Mark Sandilands was clearly the top candidate, with his well considered responses and comprehensive knowledge of the issues.

Incumbent candidate Rick Casson on the other hand, did not fair so well. The other candidates, specifically Mark Sandilands, poignant questions had him stumbling time after time. I can’t believe the polls indicate that Casson is going to be re-elected, his campaign basically consisted of admitting that his party has made lots of mistakes and that, “that’s something we should do better at”. It’s like he’s not even trying because he knows that running in a conservative stronghold means it doesn’t matter what he says.

The Conservative Party is destroying our environment, wants to reduce funding to the arts, gives tax cuts to the rich, and they refuse to support the Kelowna Accord which was intended to improve the lives of aboriginal people.

And they don’t want to let the Canadian people know their plans, refusing to publish their platform until a week before the election. Local candidate Rick Casson told us last night, a week is plenty of time to talk about the plan, and besides, it’s basically like our previous plan anyway. He didn’t notice any changes worth mentioning. As I mentioned, tonight was THE LAST PUBLIC FORUM WITH THEM BEFORE THE ELECTION.

Why would the people of Lethbridge vote for such a callous uncaring party?

One more thing that bothers me is their desire to introduce copyright legislation that is harmful to everyday citizens making the copyright system here more like the one in the US—even though the US law is seriously out of touch. The new law would, among other things, bring into action a fine of up to $500 for copying legally purchased CD’s onto MP3 players, not to mention it would make it illegal to try and circumvent anti-copyright software, making it illegal to engage in the practise of Fair Dealing (Fair Use in the USA).

The conservatives want to remain in Afghanistan. In 2006 they made it a campaign promise to be out by 2009—I learned last night that they’re now planning to wait until at least 2012, even though the Senlis report on Canadian development in Afghanistan has stated that we are “making no headway. On the ground in Kandahar… CIDA’s efforts are non-existent.”

I could go on!

But I won’t. I’ll just hope that when Canada goes to the polls on Tuesday that we vote for the party most likely to beat out the conservatives.

Categories
Politics

The NDP Bike

Lethbridge artist and activist Andy Davies shows his support of local MP candidate Mark Sandilands with his modified bike.


Vote For Mark

Andy is a friend of mine and asked me to shoot a few photos for him.

Categories
family Politics

Barack—Up Close

My cousin Amie and her husband Matt got up early this morning to attend one of Barack Obama’s rallies, this one just a few miles from their house. They got some great photos of the future president!


Barack Obama

Categories
Politics

Sarah Palin 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant

I came across a youtube video this morning that shows Sarah Palin (Sarah Heath) sporting a swimsuit in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant. The video was pulled shortly later, but in the meantime I contacted Waxy.org’s Andy Baio and he, having more foresight than me, made a copy and is now hosting it himself.