I would welcome the opinion of a constitutional law scholar on this.
I was under the impression that the Queen (or, in her place, the GG) acts on the advice of her Prime Minister–which would make the GG indeed the mouthpiece of the PM. However, the Prime Ministership belongs to whoever controls the Commons. So if the Prime Minister gets a minority government, asks the GG if he can form a government, and has his request granted–and then loses the confidence of the Commons; and the leader of the Opposition (who is not Prime Minister) tries to advise the GG that he and his colleagues are the better choice, then … aren’t we in a Catch 22 of sorts? The PM has no confidence in the Commons, but the GG can only act on the advice of the PM. That is, the GG cannot act on the advice of the leader of the Opposition.
Regardless, my study of the constitution (written and unwritten) tells me that the leader of the Opposition can indeed ask to form a government if the majority party does not have the confidence of the Commons, but the GG does not have to grant that request. My question to Canadian constitutional law scholars (and I will do my own research on this as time permits): since this situation is not spelled out in the constitution, does precedent and/or tradition hold that the GG must grant the Opposition Leader’s request? Or is there so little precedent that it becomes a judgment call on the part of the GG?
Tommy Douglas. Whenever anybody talks about Saskatchewan as being socially regressive, I have to whip out the Tommy Douglas card. Like everywhere else in Canada, there are all kinds there. Yes, the province is going through a right-wing phase at the moment - just wait…
Harper’s a member of a fundie church.
Unless you were raised around fundamentalists - it can be hard to spot them, but if you
were - you can spot them really easily, and spot them you do.
Just as the American who voted for the tea party on fiscal promises are now “shocked” regarding the tea party republicans socially conservative policies and actions, if the conservative party of Canada gets in power, the Red Tories will be “shocked” here too.
Meanwhile - us liberals who feared them will still be Cassandras.
You’re correct, of course. It’s just that discussing the purpose of the Bloc and how it came to exist couldn’t do otherwise than to lead to Quebecers and other Canadians discussing what they each think of the other part of the country and what they think of what the other side thinks of their part of the country. And so on. I’ll just give two short responses in this thread:
My apologies: I thought that by “bilingualism”, you referred to the policy of serving citizens in the official language of their choice, not to the idea of making everyone bilingual. That’s not bilingualism to me; I don’t know how I’d call it but definitely something else than “bilingualism”. And because of this I thought that you were saying that since English was the dominant language of North America, we couldn’t expect the federal government to still offer services in French in the long run. I just didn’t see what one had to do with the other. You’ve explained yourself, so that’s all right.
I’m a he. And of course I see things about Canada that you don’t see, since we just don’t have the same background. In our everyday lives, in the news we hear, we don’t retain the same things and we don’t rate them with the same importance. I’m not inventing anything, but I’m describing things that you either haven’t seen, haven’t retained, or just didn’t think were especially important. I have no doubts that there are cases where it’s the other way around.
To answer this question I will, like many others before me in this thread, recommend threehundredeight.com, which I check daily. Éric Grenier’s prevision model is conservative, in the sense that he gives a weight factor to all pan-Canadian polls released in this electoral season (and even to the results of the last three elections) when computing his current forecast. So his model doesn’t change especially fast as new polls are released, but this also avoids him being taken in by a rogue poll. He currently still forecasts only two NDP seats in Quebec (Outremont and Gatineau), but add a few more points of percentage to the NDP and a few more could switch. The NDP seems to be gaining votes at the expense of all other parties, but in French-speaking ridings especially from the Bloc since the Bloc was the frontrunner, and so for now the main effect seems to be that the Conservative MPs and André Arthur in the greater Quebec City region and in Eastern Quebec would be reelected. A few Bloc seats might also switch to the Liberals. So for now the NDP rise doesn’t translate to many seats, but the party could be on the brink.
As for the idea of Ignatieff forming a government if the Conservatives have a plurality after this election, it won’t happen with the Conservatives at 140 seats or so and the Liberals below 100. It could happen if the Conservatives lose a fair number of seats compared to the last election, while the Liberals improve. I don’t see Ignatieff forming a coalition with the NDP. He believes he can run the government by himself and won’t see sharing it with Layton as a possibility.
And it’s too late to alter my last message, but I just wanted to say that I have now voted in this election! I’ve just come back from the post office to mail my special ballot.
Well, what the CBC is reporting is that one guy said this.
Absolutely. My point is that there’s not really any realistic way the Conservatives could have a majority whereby there would not be Red Tories to speak as the sane voice. You can’t elect more MPs in rural Albera than there are seats. The country’s most socially conservative ridings are mostly already Tory; to gain seats they must win in socially moderate and progressive ridings. To go from 143 to, say, 163, they have to pick up 20 wins primarily in places where the Tory candidate is probably not going to be Mr. Right Wing Social Issues; as it is the 143 they hold already have a lot of Red Tories. And those MPs are going to rebel if they’re asked to make abortion illegal or something like that.
Taking a dramatic step like reversing the law on gay marriage is just not in the cards. Gay marriage (just to use this issue) is reality. It’s the law; more than that, it’s is now simply the way it’s always going to be. Even the Conservatives accept that, some happily and some grudgingly; it’s not mentioned in their platform because the Conservative leadership knows it’s a hill they would die on.
PM Harper’s response to Planned Parenthood funding question. After reading the article, I’m not sure if Planned Parenthood is funded by the federal government in Canada or not. I do know that Brad Trost in no way speaks for my views on abortion and reproduction rights for women. I’m not ashamed to be from Saskatchewan; I’m a little embarrassed that HE is.
You’ll be happy to know that he’s being challenged from the right by “Dr.” Jim Pankiw who’s running as an independent and makes Trost look like an NDPer. I seriously doubt he’ll split the right-wing vote enough for Trost to lose, though.
Man, I thought he’d been laughed out of politics. I had no idea he was still around. Although thankfully I’m represented by neither now, I’ve had the “pleasure” of being represented in Parliament by both Pankiw and Rob Anders in the past.
Seems to me that the Cons are running a campaign filled with gaffes and mini-scandals, which hasn’t changed their standing a bit. The Libs have not been able to capitalize on it. Oddly, the campaign that is really taking off is the NDP.
Ipsos Reid has done a poll that puts the Conservatives suddenly way up at 43% (a near certain majority) and the NDP in second place, with the Liberals on the road to utter humiliation.
Don’t believe it. Ipsos Reid’s polls has consistently overstated Conservative support and understated Liberal support. They’re an outlier. You have to look at all the polls.
My point isn’t that the cons are up (I think the consensus is still we are headed for a con minority), it is that they are not down - in spite of running a campaign in which every other news story is about some gaffe or scandal of theirs.
The Libs haven’t picked up anything from this, seemingly.
Yeah, I’ve remarked on that too… if you had told me in March the Conservatives would commit this many gaffes and the Liberals would commit so few, I’d have thought Ignatieff would have a shot at winning.
I can’t help but think, though, that the Liberals just don’t have a very clear message.
The problem with attacking the governing party with all-negative advertising when you’re playing in a three-or-more-party system is that while it might convince the voters not to vote for them, it doesn’t necessarily convince the voter to vote for YOU. For all we know, the Liberal attack ads are convincing people to vote NDP.
The Liberal campaign has gone super negative, likely out of a sense of panic. All their ads are dark and terrifying. The Toronto Star’s running daily editorials railing against Harper. By contrast, the NDP and Tory campaigns mix negative with positive; while they put up some of the mean stuff, they make more of an effort to tell you why you should vote for THEM. The Liberals were doing an okay job selling their party in the first week but when the polls didn’t instantly go their way they seem to have lost their way.
The poll in the Ottawa Sun read 34%, 25, 25 (and 16 for the Bloc and others, I guess?). I must say, as someone who is typically branded as a right-winger, I’ve been really impressed by Jack Layton personally, and on his platform. Particularly his proposal to ban cellphone carrier locks and usage based internet billing, and subsidize Broadbent–er, Broadband :)–Internet. Were my riding not a guaranteed Liberal one, I’d seriously consider voting NDP.
I like Layton, but I think much of the NDP’s platform is ill advised. (Limited credit card interest rates is just about the craziest idea to come down the pike in years.) The NDP platform’s full of things that we can’t possibly afford and with no plan for cutting spending. How on earth can we DOUBLE CPP benefits?
But he’s a fundamentally good man - not perfect, and he lets whiffs of power distract him from his principles - but he’s a good guy, and there’s no doubt Layton’s personality is driving the NDP forward. He’s the leader they lacked for many years, especially in the really grim times when they seemed determined to appoint the most boring leaders to be found in the free world.
