Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Question Time
It is time for the Conservatives and their supporters to answer three questions definitively, about coalitions and the Bloc Quebecois. 1. Are coalitions legitimate in a Westminster democracy, yes or no? 2. Do Quebecers have the right to choose whomever they want in an election? Yes or No? 3. If yes, do those representatives have the same rights as any other MP to vote, and form alliances with other parties? If no, then how does the Conservative Party intend to block Quebec voters from choosing members the Party considers illegitimate? These are simple questions and Canadians and Quebecers have a right to know the answers to them before the next election.
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1. Yes.
ReplyDelete2. Yes.
3. Actually, given that every last one of the Bloc MPs is a perjurer, except for the ones first elected before 1990, that's questionable. They are swearing oaths that are lies in order to take their seats in Parliament, and people know this.
Before 1990, those people would not have been allowed to take their seats.
Coyne grumbles about this from time to time.
Posted on it at greater length at my place.
ReplyDeleteTo the larger point -- I say the opposition parties may as well go for a coalition after the next election, even with a hypothetical 150 seat Tory caucus.
I mean, what have you got to lose?
Everyone knows the Liberals (and the NDP for that matter) would prefer unfettered majorities (and Harper . They do not like each other much. However, if it turns out there is no majority party, coalition government is absolutely constitutional. Harper had better make that clear or he risks tearing the country apart.
ReplyDeleteGiven that he's running around the country claiming that there's going to be a coalition government unless we give him a majority, I think that particular point is now crystal clear.
ReplyDeleteUntil post election when he starts calling it a coup d'etat again.
ReplyDeleteWarning about a coalition is not the same as saying it is legitimate.
ReplyDeleteOh, just keep your nerve.
ReplyDeleteLast time, people thought it was sprung on them.
That won't be so this time. That reaction was a one-time thing. Educated votes will be cast in 2011 or 2012.
Harper won't keep government if he has fewer seats than the Grits and the Dippers combined. If it's a rerun of this parliament, where he outnumbers them, it's a crapshoot. Take him down on the Throne Speech if you're serious, and it'll stick.
Harper won't keep government if he has fewer seats than the Grits and the Dippers combined.
ReplyDeleteThe point is he shouldn't keep power if the House has no confidence in him after the election. Period. Sadly, I think he will try to hang on, no matter what and demand another election and then another if the first doesn't suit him, no matter the cost and no matter the damage to the country.
Harper has never lost a confidence vote in nearly five years as PM.
ReplyDeleteThat may pain you, but it's true.
To spell it out: defeat the first Throne Speech, and he's out. Period. The end.
ReplyDeleteEven if there were 152 Tories sitting in the House.
Harper has never lost a confidence vote in nearly five years as PM.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and all he had to do was shut down the House. And yes, that does pain me.
He has to have a Throne Speech someday in the life of the 41st Parliament of Canada (assuming he wins a plurality in the next election).
ReplyDeleteJust defeat it, if you can. It isn't rocket science -- as the House Republicans showed President Obama, the other side does not own your votes.
Just defeat it
ReplyDeleteI suspect that is how it will go, depending on the composition of the House. Layton and the rest could go to the GG after the election and present themselves as the majority, too.
No, that one thing they cannot do. The PM gets a chance to meet the House, and the GG will take advice from no-one else.
ReplyDeleteBut if the Throne Speech goes down to defeat, the other leaders certainly get a shot at forming an alternate government.
If that is the case the PM will probably wait the maximum before bringing the House back, in order to start a second terror campaign against the "socialists and separatists".
ReplyDeleteIMHO, that'd be unwise.
ReplyDeleteJoe Clark did that in 1979. Best to get a budget passed ASAP.
Longer he waits to meet parliament, the longer the opposition has to negotiate a deal amongst themselves.
If I were him, I'd meet Parliament that very week with a barebones Throne Speech. Because it's only right then that the opposition clearly _must_ be allowed to try a coalition. Once parliament has passed a Throne Speech, much harder to justify a change w/o a trip to the polls. (Possible w/in a year to eighteen months, sure, but a heavier lift for you.)