Too late: Bill C-48 passes
Gorsnak, I saw a few rumours in the media I was surfing earlier that supported that suggestion: the Bloc won’t change its official position on C-48, that they oppose it, but they won’t put a full three-line whip on the vote, either, so that not all of their members will show up. The ones that do will vote against the bill, but if even two or three Bloc MPs are conveniently away on constituency business that day, the government would survive, and then the next item of business would be C-38.
From the story matt linked to:
I guess the moral of the story is: if you’re planning an ambush, maybe you shouldn’t advise the news media.
Well dagnabbit! I go to all this effort speculating on things, and what happens? Nothing! No theatrics, no drama, nothing! Those bastards.
On the other hand, looks like we should be celebrating the passage of the same-sex marriage bill soon.
Here’s a more detailed story of how it went down: Budget Add-on Bill passes in Snap Vote.
Am I reading that right? The Bloc voted for the closure motion? Knowing full well that it would mean passage of C-48 - looks like my speculation might not have been off after all. They want to pass C-38 more than they wanted to defeat C-48.
Prediction: Harper and the Tories will make a lot of noise about how this was a sneaky underhanded procedural trick, but they won’t point out the fact that they’ve been using every procedural trick in the book to delay things for the past weeks.
Much as how Peter Mackay was screaming about the Liberals being in bed with the sovereignists.
So, Peter, just how coked up did you have to be to miss everything your party did last month? No wonder Belinda dumped you.
As for the Bloc, one thing is that the Bloc has been under quite some pressure here in Quebec, from all the social groups that are already mobilized against Charest’s cuts, to pass or at least not strenuously block C-48.
They may just have gotten to have their cake and eat it too – extend the session ostensibly to deal with the marriage bill, while at the same time voting against C-48, but without defeating it.
Well, Gorsnak, you must have been following politics more closely than I was during the last few days, because I didn’t see that coming. I never knew that the Bloc was so anxious to have C-38 pass. I know most of them support it, but on the other hand, a few Bloc MPs are actually planning to vote against C-38, so it kind of surprises me that the leadership decided to indirectly help pass a budget that they kept saying was contrary to Québec’s interests, in exchange for a promise that C-38 will be brought to vote in the next few days. I understand what matt_mcl says, that social groups in Québec were pressuring the Bloc not to block C-48, but their position was very clear: this budget was a bad thing. I guess they weren’t telling everything. Well, okay, they’re politicians. 
This said, I wonder how the handful of anti-gay marriage Bloc MPs feel right now.
Probably the same way the anti-SSM Liberals feel; they’re just being swept along.
I don’t remember that as being their main message: I heard them as being that the government was bad for Quebec and they would be trying to get rid of it by voting down the gummint. The budget being bad for Quebec was, and sounded like, something they were just pulling out of their ass to justify why they wanted to send us into an election.
Probably a good thing too. The Courts have already made the thing a reality in most of the country and no one is seriously looking at using the Notwithstanding clause so really there is nothing that Parliment can do about stopping the SSM laws. Any laws they try to pass against it will be deemed unconstitutional so, really, let’s just stop the endless pointless debate.
I say just have the vote get it done and have the summer break open for people to wail and gnash their teeth over it. That way when they come back in the fall Parliment can finally go on to really important issues like say running the country.
In other news, Stephen continues to be on another planet:
Um, what have they spent the last month and a half doing?!
And then there was Peter’s little nugget bitching about the Liberals being in bed with the eeevil separatists. My, that sounds familiar.
Really, I don’t mind my previous impressions being proved right, but this “completely disconnected from anything resembling this reality” thing is really getting old.
Once upon a time, I used to enjoy following Canadian politics. Now, all I am left with is the sick sense of watching an inevitable multiple vehicle collision in slow motion. Could the fiscal conservative politicos and the social conservative politicos please stop trying to share the same space, so that we fed up federalist fiscal conservatives could have some reasonable alternative to the Liberals that might actually be able to win a federal election?
The party that survived not scrapping the GST will have no problem surviving a broken promise to call an election after Gomery. If the Tories can’t manage in this minority government situation to be a more effective opposition, when could they?
The Globe and Mail is reporting that Chuck Cadman, independent MP for Surrey North, has died of cancer. (story) Too bad. He seemed a standup guy who was genuinely concerned with representing his constituents. Not to mention that he made federal politics just a little more interesting. The history of the riding suggests that the Tories will likely pick up the seat in the eventual byelection.
Well, they pretty much have to “share the same space,” don’t they, if they want any chance of getting into Parliament under the existing system? See this thread: “Will Canada ever change to proportional representation?” http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=322402
I don’t see why. I’m sure there are a number of Liberals who are actually fiscal conservatives who stick with that party because they don’t like the religious nut jobs in the conservative party. Same with voters. If we could remove religious wackos and get a party who said something like everyone is equal and we don’t care what you do in your bedroom and we’ll provide an acceptable level of health care, education, social services, etc, but we aren’t your mother so get off your ass and get to work, I think you’d have a party that would have quite a good chance of forming a government.
What Uzi said. The problem with Canadian politics now is that the traditional Liberal/PC left of centre/right of centre split has been replaced with a setup that has the Liberals squarely in the centre, the NDP on the left, and the new Conservatives on the right (the Bloq is pretty much in the same space as the NDP for Quebec). This leaves the majority of Canadians with nobody but the Liberals to vote for in their historically preferred centrist spot.
The Conservatives have to lose the wacko element and come up with a better election platform than “We aren’t the Liberals”. Even the Liberal corruption bit won’t take them very far with voters like myself, who remember back to the previous Conservative/Liberal/Conservative/etc. governments’ regular scandal meltdowns and see the corruption as having little to do with the party affiliation and a lot to do with them being politicians. Not to say that the Libs don’t need a good bitch slapping right now, but a lot of voters will hold their noses and vote Liberal rather than risk the Conservatives being able to actually impliment some of their more repugnant policies.
This is the Conservatives taking a page from the Republican handbook. Which is part of what makes the Conservatives so scary to so many Canadians. Although their policy choices could easily take care of that on its own.