Questions about Canadian politics

Factual Questions
1

Rather than butt my ugly American head into this thread, I thought I’d start a whole new thread in which I can reveal my utter ignorance of Canadian politics and the parliamentary system in general. (In my defense, I did memorize “Oh Canada” just, you know, in case. :wink: ) Anyway, so I’m wondering:

  1. Why the “no confidence” vote? NPR mentioned a scandal, but didn’t say what it was about.

  2. When are elections regularly scheduled, or do you just keep going until you decide it’s time for a change?

  3. I think I heard that there are four political parties that will be running candidates; what are they, and what do they stand for?

  4. What are the major issues people are concerned about?

Thanks!

2

From what I hear it was mostly related to a kickback scandal involving several high-ranking Liberal party officials and possibly the PM himself.

The Canadian House of Commons is elected for a maximum of five years, but elections can be called early if the government loses a no-confidence vote (as happened recently.) The Canadian Senate is made up of appointed members, as I recall.

The two major parties in Canadian federal politics are the Conservatives and the Liberals, and the smaller ones are NDP (New Democratic Party) and Bloc Quebecois. I don’t really know enough to give an answer about their respective platforms, except that the NDP is generally considered the most economically liberal and somewhat socialist, and the BQ supports independant sovereignty for Quebec.

3

[QUOTE=The Weird One]
Rather than butt my ugly American head into this thread, I thought I’d start a whole new thread in which I can reveal my utter ignorance of Canadian politics and the parliamentary system in general. (In my defense, I did memorize “Oh Canada” just, you know, in case. :wink: ) Anyway, so I’m wondering:

Over a number of years, the Quebec win of the Liberals, who have formed the government since 1993, paid a lot of money to quebec ad and PR firms for the federal government to “sponsor” various events and such in order to promote Canada; this was done ostensibly to gain PR points against the separatist movement in Quebec. But it was revealed that millions of dollars of the money was given away in exchange for nothing and some was given back to the Liberal Party’s coffers - stolen, in other words. Several Liberal Mamers of Parliament have been directly implicated, as well as a number of party hacks.

Elections have to happen every five years at a minimum. That rarely happens; usually, an election is called beforehand. If the ruling party holds a majority they’ll usually call an election roughly every 3.5 to 4.5 years; waiting the full 5 is the kiss of death since it makes you look desperate.

But as you’ve now seen, if the ruling party does not hold a majority, there could be a vote of non confidence, triggering an election. a vote of non confidence could either be an outright vote on the issue, as this one was, Or it could happen if the government failed to pass a key peice of legislation, such as a budget (since a government that can’t pass a budget or such can’t very well govern.)

the Liberal Party of Canada has held power since 1993. they are relatively moderate by Canadian standards and stand for doing more or less the same stuff they always have.

The Conservative Party of Canada is the Official Opposition. It is the amalgamation of two parties, the Progressive Conservative Party, which was previously the Liberals’ big rival (and the oldest party in Canada) but was nearly annihilated in the 1993 election, and the Alliance Party, aka the Reform Party, a conservative party that split off from the old Progressive Conservatives in 1993. The Conservative Party is more conservative than the Liberals but still moderate by American standards. It calls for a bit more financial and social conservatism (it is fitfully opposed to gay marriage, sort of) closer ties to the US, more defense spending, and more recognition of the issues Western Canada holds dear.

The New Democratic Party of Canada is Canada’s left-of-centre party. It has always been in third place, polling about 8 to 20% of the vote. It desires, to simplify, a European-style socialist state, more trade barriers, less friendly relations with the USA, and socially liberal policies.

The Bloc Quebecois runs candidates only in Quebec; it desires separation from Canada. In terms of polict it, like the provincial equivalent (the Parti Quebecois) is relatively left-leaning, though not so much as the NDP.

Governmental corruption.

The state of the health care system.

The economy in general, of course.

Whether or not to follow the U.S. lead in foreign affairs.

Federal-provincial relations.

Hockey (not an election issue, but we do love our hockey.)

4

1. Why the “no confidence” vote? NPR mentioned a scandal, but didn’t say what it was about.

The Sponsorship Scandal.

2. When are elections regularly scheduled, or do you just keep going until you decide it’s time for a change?

They’re not scheduled, they’re called. Either by the party in power (when they thin they can win) or by the opposition (when they feel they’ve lost all confidence in the current government).

  1. I think I heard that there are four political parties that will be running candidates; what are they, and what do they stand for?

There’s really only two parties of consequence, the Liberals (The Grits) and the Conservatives (The Tories).

The NDP (New Democrats) is kind of the tree-hugging party that rarely wins anything and spends like there’s no tomorrow if ever in power.

Then there’s the real crack pots:

The Bloc is only a party in Quebec and is bound and determined to separate from the rest of Canada.

We have a Nazi party, a Marijuana Party, a Marxist-Lenninst Party and a host of others independants.
4. What are the major issues people are concerned about?

Gay Marriage is still probably pretty hot (or will heat up, the Tories want to repeal it). Taxes are always a big thing. The Liberals are hinting at lowering or cutting our seond sales tax, the GST (Giids & Services Tax). American relations is big right now too with the softwood lumber dispute in full swing.

5

The scandal was the Gomery Inquiry - the Liberals (who were in power) basically dishonestly spent a huge chunk of money.

Liberals - fairly similar to the same in the States, but not as extreme
Conservatives - used to be the Progessive-Conservatives, more in the middle, but are starting to turn into the students of the Republican party
NDP - more liberal than the Liberals
Bloc - Only run in Quebec, and are between the Liberals and the NDP. Irrelevant to any province but Quebec, can’t have enough seats to get into power even if all their candidates are elected.

The major issues are health care (big, big, big - money running away fast and waiting times), softwood lumber, fishing, gay marriage (if the Conservatives get elected, no more gay marriage) and marijuana. Also, Quebec seperation comes up as usual at election time.

6

How does no-confidence work? The members of Parliament just vote No Confidence and that’s it, the Prime Minister is out? Is it like an impeachment? What’s to keep the majority party from voting out the PM immediately after s/he is elected?

7

That would be unlikely, since it is they who just elected the PM!

8

Well, the Prime Minister is from the majority party, and they don’t want to kick out their boss. Normally a no confidence vote comes up in a situation like the current one, a “minority government”, where the party with the most seats in the House of Commons does not have an absolute majority. The other parties use their combined votes to defeat the Government on a matter of confidence. (Either by passing a motion of non-confidence, like yesterday, or defeating the Government on something important, like the budget). It’s not like impeachment, as there’s no necessary implication of wrong-doing – it just means "We think it’s time for a new government). (This is really boiled down, but I have to get to work.)

9

An MP will table a motion (this may not be the correct word) stating that the government no longer has the confidence of the House. It is then put up for a vote. Assuming a majority of the House votes for the motion, the government has now lost confidence and has been defeated.

This could’ve been done immediately preceding the last election but that would’ve generated a great deal of ill will towards to parties who brought down the government. It would’ve made it seem like they were unwilling to try and make this system work. At that point, the next largest party in the House, the Conservatives, would likely get a chance to govern. Had this have happened, it wouldn’t have lasted very long and we probably would’ve had an election sooner. And there would’ve been an irritated population, who would’ve had to go through a second election in less than a year.

It was in the best interest of all the parties to try and make the minority government work.

10

In Canada the leader of the majority party is the Prime Minister. They are not elected seperately from the party as it is done in the US.

If you vote liberal, you get Martin, if you vote conservative, you get Harper.

In order for a no-confidence motion to pass, in a minority government, all the other parties have to get together and decide to vote against the government. Currently, the three non-governing parties are pretty well totally opposits to each other, so it’s pretty hard to get them to agree to anything.

Further, sometimes a smaller party (such as the NDP) will make a deal with the government whereby if the NDP agrees to vote with the Liberals on such-and-such and issue, the Liberals will add Clause X to this particular bill, or that particular motion.

This time, the three other parties were plenty pissed off and actually managed to agree to oust the government, which they did. Now an election is called, most likely on January 23. This could backfire on the ousters, however, because many Canadians are not interested in a political fight over the holidays.

11

Because the Prime Minister is not separate from the parliamentary caucus - he/she is the leader of the caucus.

So, to take the current situation: Paul Martin is the leader of the Liberals (nicknamed the “Grits”). Suppose he leads the Grits to a majority victory in the election in January (doubtful, according to all the polls, but possible). So now the Liberals have a majority in the Commons and a firm grasp on power, thanks in large part to the leadership Mr. Martin has displayed and the trust that Canadians have put in him (keep the gagging noises to a minimum, please). Why on earth would the Liberal caucus dump him?

The same goes for Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservatives (nicknamed the “Tories”). If he leads the party to a majority in the January election (again, doubtful, according to the polls, but possible), there would be absolutlely no reason for the Conservatives to dump him - why would they? He’s just led them to victory.

Where it gets more tricky is if no party is returned with a majority, which happened in the election in the spring of 2004. Mr. Martin was the Prime Minister going into the election. The Liberals were the party with the single largest number of seats, but about 20 seats short of a majority in the Commons. One of two things can happen in that situation: either the PM can somehow cobble together enough support from the Opposition parties on individual issues to command a majority in the Commons (called keeping the “confidence” of the Commons), or the Opposition parties can vote together to defeat the government and put one of the other parties in power.

In fact, Mr. Martin in 2004 was able to do the first - he had enough support from the NDP and some independent MPs to stay in power until this week. However, if the Bloq and the Conservatives had been able to hammer out a deal back in the summer of 2004 and combine to defeat the Martin government then, odds are the Conservatives would have formed a government and Martin would have been out.

There are two types of non-confidence votes, but both led to the same potential result.

The formal Motion of Non-Confidence is an Opposition motion in the House of Commons, usually framed along the lines of “Whereas, yadda yadda yadda, current government is bad, yadda yadda yadda, Therefore this House does resolve that it has no confidence in the current government.” If that passes by a simple majority vote, then the government has been defeated.

The other type of confidence vote is on major pieces of legislation, like the budget. If the government is defeated on the budget or other major pieces of legislations, it’s traditionally considered a confidence matter.

That doesn’t mean the Prime Minister ceases to be PM. Instead, he now has two options: to ask the Governor General to dissolve the House and call a new election, or try to form a new government in the current Commons. The PM in this case is doing the first - he’s to call on the GovGen today to seek a dissolution, leading to elections for the House of Commons in January. PM Martin stays on as Prime Minister until the elections, but in a “caretaker” role - he’s not able to do anything but keep the machinery of government ticking on all the routine matters, while the people decide if they want to keep him in office.

The option of trying to increase his support in the Commons is what kept him alive last spring on the budget vote - a prominent Tory MP defected to the Liberals. That, and the support of the NDP and a few independent MPs, allowed the Martin government to pass the budget, by a single vote - the Speaker’s tie-breaking vote. Since the NDP has withdrawn their support this time, that option wasn’t open to PM Martin.

No. Impeachment was invented by the English Parliament, but gradually fell out of disuse in our parliamentary systems as the idea of the confidence of the Commons evolved. Now, a non-confidence motion is strictly a political judgement: should the current government continue in power? Non-confidence is not an assessment on whether the PM has been guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, simply an assessment of whether he should remain in power. Crimes are a matter for the courts to decide, but evidence of criminal behaviour on the part of members of the government , which is alleged to have occurred here, is obviously an important factor in deciding if the current government should stay in power.

12

damn you, Rube, with your short-winded answers!

13

So Canadians don’t vote for PMs, they vote for parties? There is no debate between the Grit candidate and the Tory candidate? If I understand correctly, if it worked the same here in the States, the Senate Majority Leader would be the Prime Minister?

14

You vote fot a candidate in your local riding (i.e. Congressional District), we have 308 ridings across the country. There are nationally televised debates between the leaders of the parties and of course, local debates for your riding held in local schools/churches/etc. The party which has the most candidates elected, gets to form the government.

To be precise, it would be leader of the majority party of Congress. We also have a Senate but for the most part, they are simply the rubber stamp.

15

You vote for a member of parliament in the house of commons, the lower house. (Actually closer to your house of representatives than the senate, but I think your senate is more powerful than ours, which has become largely symbolic.)

The leader of the party which forms a government in the commons becomes prime minister. Party leaderships are thus hotly contested, and more comparable to presidential candidates than house leaders.

Normally, the party that forms a government, (and whose leader is PM) has the most seats in the commons. Occasionally this is not true, usually having to do with a minority situation like this one. The PM, instead of deciding to call an election when the vote of non-confidence went through, could theoretically have chosen to have his government step down while keeping commons in session, in which case the opposition party with the most seats would have the option of trying to form a government.

Ohh, and yes, there are debates between the party leaders in an election. Most people probably are more influenced in their votes by the party leaders than local candidates. But on paper, they’re voting for the local candidate.

16

No, we vote for the candidate in our local constituency. Except for the Bloq, each party tries to run candidates in every constituency. When we vote, we know who the leaders of the parties are, and they normally have three debates (two in English, one in French). Deciding who to vote for is a combination of assessing the leader of the party, the party policies, and the local candidate (usually in that order of importance).

On election night, we’ll know pretty much how many constituencies each party has won and how many members each party will have in the new Commons. If one party has a majority, that party’s leader either stays on as Prime Minister (if he was PM going into the election) or becomes Prime Minister (if his party has defeated the party that was in power).

The leaders of the parties each have to run in a constituency and win it locally to sit in Parliament. Only the voters in those constituencies actually see the names of the party leaders on the ballot, and get to vote for or against that candidate. Paul Martin stands for election in one of the constiuencies in Montreal; Harper in Calgary, Alberta; Layton in Toronto; Duceppe in a Quebec riding - can’t remember which one just now.

If a leader fails to win his seat, it normally is the end of his or her political career (see: Prime Minister Kim Campbell in 1993), but not always. It’s happened on occasion that the leader loses his seat but his party wins the general election. If the leader has enough support in the party to stay on, some other MP will resign to give the leader a chance to win another seat.

17

Usually. Leyton was leader of the NDP before he won his seat.

18

Are party leaders expected to be fluent in French, or do most use a translator for the French debate? Are there French-speaking provinces other than Quebec?

19

And thanks for all your help and explanations. You clearly have a better grasp of U.S. politics than most Americans do of Canadian politics. :o

20

Laurier-Sainte Marie, in Montreal.