Then you got no say as to where that portion of your tax money went. That’s the result of opting completely out of the electorial process.
Hmmm, I just checked out the text of Bill C-24, and you are technically correct. I assumed that the Bill mandated $1.25 per vote for each party. In actual fact, the Bill provides for " any party receiving a minimum percentage of the popular vote in a general election an annual public allowance proportional to its share of votes."
So each party gets a share of a fixed “pie” rather than a multiple of $1.25 X the number of votes.
If I sat home because I was too lazy to get off the couch, then yeah, I’d agree with you. But, if there are no choices that properly reflect your preferences then I’d say a perfect option is to not vote for any of them. There should be a check box that says ‘None of the above’. And there should be a penalty for those ran and lost to ‘None of the above’ that denies them the option to run again.
But in the mean time: So, what better way to make them more competent than by making them market themselves and their policies in such a way that sufficient numbers of people are willing to support their efforts by ponying up the necessary cash to do so?
By what right do they figure the government should pay them for votes they get? And what reason do they think this issue deserves to bring down the government, and place the country in a potential crisis in the midst of a world wide financial meltdown?
And in case anyone wonders if the Conservatives had only suggested cutting funding for the opposition parties, they did not. It would apply to all parties. They just have supporters who are willing to pay for their party. Just as the Liberals knew they didn’t have supporters to pay for their party when they brought this legislation in.
Actually, the price per vote is $1.75 going to $1.95 due to inflation.
Link to relevant article
Purely as a matter of fighting ignorance, it should be noted that the incoming government (if this comes to pass) would be a Liberal/NDP coalition, with BQ support in the House. No BQ member of parliament will be in Cabinet, and the Bloc will sit in the Opposition benches.
The three Opposition parties are stating that they have no confidence in the Conservative Cabinet, and the BQ have agreed, if certain policies are followed, to maintain confidence in a joint Liberal/NDP Cabinet.
As for my own thoughts on the matter, I think it is ugly. I think it’s a mess. But it is a mess of the Con’s own making. And if they want another $300 000 000 election to be called less than two months after we just finished a fairly unnecessary $300 000 000 election, as our economy is starting to falter, even if we still are in better shape than many other countries, they had better come with some damn good reasons, fast. And pulling out the “well the Opposition were making contingency plans during the last election!” is not what I’d consider a damn good reason. To me, that sounds like prudent forethought, given the likely nature of minority parliaments in our federal politics of late.
Or it could mean that no matter what the conservatives did, even if it was the best thing for the country, the opposition parties were going to bring them down. Is it best for the country for them to do it now?
The coalition has the support of the Green Party as well. That’s 51.2% of the vote before the Bloc even comes in. Duceppe gets to play kingmaker only because we don’t have proportional representation, which is the true scandal here. But until we do, this coalition is the next best thing. It would be far more legitimate than the Conservative government ever was.
Furthermore, the level of hostility towards the Bloc is really quite unsettling, if not unexpected. If your objective is to convince Quebecers to stick around, you are going about it in the worst possible way.
But why should anyone outside of Quebec ever support the Bloc? I’m from British Columbia. What are they ever going to do for me? Their only purpose for being is to make sure Quebec gets a bigger slice. That makes them against the interests of 90% of all the provinces in this great land of ours. And that is where the hostility comes from.
No one is asking you to.
If the BQ is a legitimate enough party for the Conservatives to court in an attempt to take down a Liberal minority government less than three or so years ago; the same BQ (with the same leader, mostly same MPs, and a virtually unchanged policy directive) is an equally legitimate party for others to court in an attempt to take down the current Conservative minority government.
That’s how the parliamentary game is played, if you don’t have a majority. It is not a new concept.
But were they going to form a coalition with them, or just use their votes to get a general election called?
Obviously, I’m not trying to swing your vote here. But what the Bloc stands for is not necessarily to the detriment of the rest of Canada. Here’s a listof their recent policies. I’m reading about support for the Kyoto Protocol, indigenous peoples’ rights, and farmer’s rights among other topics. They’ve even called for increased reparations regarding the head tax on Chinese immigrants, which I assume may be of interest to many inhabitants of British Columbia. Just because the positions they advocate are of interest to their Quebec supporters doesn’t mean that citizens in the rest of Canada don’t stand to benefit from their efforts.
And matt_mcl and Helen’s Eidolon have been much more eloquent than I can ever hope to be.
Are you retarded, or just being obtuse?
Again, the BQ will not be part of any government, they have only agreed to hold confidence in a different government within the current makeup of the House.
Let me add my kudos to those who speak of **matt_mcl ** expressing their point of view eloquently. I missed being around yesterday.
I continue to believe that the problem that the Canadian electorate (not necessarily the folks on this board) has with the whole question stems from influence that the American system has on our perception of the way the Canadian Parliament works. The recurring thought that “We elected a Prime Minister. Who are these bozos to throw him out.” is just wrong in so many ways. That’s the part of this conflict that’s Pit worthy, especially since Harper and his people are reinforcing it.
If there’s an American lesson that should be learned here, it’s one on the importance of vote counting in a closed system. Justice Thurgood Marshall always emphasized to his clerks that the most important skill that a Supreme Court Justice needed was the ability to count to 5, because without 5 votes you had nothing.
It may be that the most important skill that a minority Prime Minister needs is the ability to count to 155. Without being able to do that, you lose your job.
Yeah, okay. Believe what you want if it makes you sleep better at night and still allows you to get your particular party into power. Even if it means they have to get into bed with a separatist party to do so.
It truly amazes me that you believe the Bloc won’t use this ‘favour’ it is doing for the Liberals/NDP (or should I say Niberals now?) to its advantage and influence the government. So, if the Conservatives and the Bloc combine together to support a Niberal overthrow, I can expect you won’t be upset about it even if the Bloc makes the same deal with them? Or you wouldn’t have been upset if they had made such a deal before the Liberals and NDP did?
If that is what the majority of people believe then why is it wrong for them to object? People enter the voting booth and cast their vote either for the local guy, or for the party, or for who they want to be the next PM. To deny this is to say that every time you put an X next to the name of the NDP’er, Liberal, or Conservative in your riding that that person was the best person to represent you. You can’t possibly think that is always, or even remotely, the case. I hazard to guess that most people couldn’t put a name to a face when they go to vote. All they probably know is which party they will vote for based upon the guy leading the party. Whether that is wrong for them to think that way is another matter entirely and ignores the reality.
Here’s a less offensive formulation. But it’s just as wrong.
"On October 14, Canadians selected a minority Conservative government. "
No. No. No.
On October 14, Canadians elected the members of a House of Commons. On taking their seats, the members of that House confirmed a government made up from the Conservative minority in their ranks. That government has, in less than a month of sitting time and with no substantive votes other than the response to the Speech from the Throne, lost the confidence of the House.
Another group of members of the House appear to have the confidence of the members elected on October 14. They should be given the opportunity to govern. That’s the way the system works.
Why is it wrong for them to object, Uzi? Because the objection is based on an incorrect premise. I could object that my vote in the Canadian election didn’t have an impact in the Minnesota senatorial election, but the premise that it should have is flawed, making it nonsensical. What would be pitworthy, though, would be if one of the Minnesota Senatorial candidates urged me to protest that lack of impact saying that the results were anti-democratic.
Because they are wrong. If a majority of people believe in something that is patently false, it does not therefore make it true.
The fact is that we do not vote for a prime minister in this country. We vote for a member of parliament for our riding, and the party with the largest number of MP’s at the end of the day forms the government, with their leader as Prime Minister. If that Prime Minister loses the confidence of the house, the government falls. The Governer General then may call for a new election, or call for another party to take the reins of government if they can show they have the confidence of the house.
This is the way our system works. If a majority of Canadians think otherwise, it behooves us to educate them, and not say that they are right because they are in the majority.
Hey, I know how parliament works. It doesn’t make the fact any less valid that the way it works, and how people think it should work, can be two different things. If the majority think that a change in party means they should get to vote, then that is what they think. It doesn’t make them wrong. The party who assumes power has the ability to call an election if they want to. If people expect them to and they don’t, then that party takes a chance in alienating people who might otherwise have voted for them. But there is no legal reason for them to call an election. They shouldn’t be upset, though, that in the next election, whenever it is called, people remember*.
*Actually, it is a good bet to assume that people won’t remember, or won’t care by that point.:rolleyes:
I’m very correct, but not for that reason.
The decision to vote for Party X does not mean I pay $1.95, or any other fixed amount, for that party. The amount of money I pay towards the support of federal political parties is almost certainly NOT $1.95, and has absolutely nothing to do with how I vote; the amount is determined by the function of (a) the total cost of the funding program, and (b) how much tax I pay. All taxes go into a common pool, and the amount I pay is equal to a percentage of my total tax bill that reflects the percentage of federal expenditures spent on all things funded by general revenue. If I pay more tax, then more of my money goes to the funding program. If I pay less tax, I pay less to that, and all, programs. Someone who pays no tax pays no money at all to the program. Someone who pays a lot of tax would pay a lot.
That’s just not true. It’s LEGALLY true that you vote for an MP, but saying people don’t vote for PM is just like saying that no Americans voted for Barack Obama to be President, they just voted for electors; it’s technically true but is deliberately misleading.
One of the most important effects electing an MP has is determining who the Prime Minister will be. That’s just a plain fact, and so it influences the way people vote. It has been true since 1867 that the importance of a person’s vote was largely due to its influence over who the Prime Minister would be, and people vote accordingly. This is a country where the Constitution goes beyond just what is written, and the office of the Prime Minister is an important part of our unwritten Constitution. It’s just not a full admission of the facts to pretend that people are not voting, at least in part, to determine the Prime Minister.
Back in the MPIMS thread, someone had trouble imagining how things could get worse. I now have a scenario. Harper asks for a prorogation. the GG says no. Harper then (as is his right) sacks her and announces a plan to name a new GG. “All legal means” indeed.
I do not put it past him. And, no, I am not wearing a tinfoil hat. I just don’t trust Eddie Haskell.