Yes, that’s exactly what I believe.
If you can vote (and don’t fall under any of these areas of the Canada Elections Act), you’re eligible. If you get elected, you’re qualified. What your criteria?
They actually lost votes and seats (and three ministers) in Quebec while winning this majority, so this will obviously be a challenge for them. Much earlier in this thread I mentioned the (unlikely) possibility of the Conservatives forming a majority government with the Bloc as Official Opposition if the Liberals really tanked. If we look at the current situation, it’s actually not far from what happened.
This is a worry. You’re currently in Quebec – and I’m not – so you’ll know this better than I, but as I understand it Quebecers are as shocked as anyone else by the NDP wave and are wondering if it didn’t go too far. One of the professors in my department apparently apologized for voting NDP and thereby contributing to the Bloc defeat in Sherbrooke. So I figure that everyone will be looking at Layton and his caucus and expect something to happen.
And as Sam Stone pointed out, the NDP now has more than 50% of his MPs from Quebec, which will definitely change the party dynamics. This reminds me of the Social Credit, which was a small Western Canadian socially conservative party until 1962 when they suddenly exploded with 26 Quebec MPs (and four in BC and AB combined). The strain split the party in two. Of course the conditions are different: the Socreds didn’t want to attract the Quebec vote (Layton has been courting it) and there were ideological differences between Quebec and Western Socreds. Will there be major ideological differences between NDP MPs from Quebec and from the other provinces? There might be. The NDP has a traditional base of blue-collar, unionized, somewhat conservative workers, while many of the new Quebec MPs appear to be university students in political science, and therefore perhaps comparable to Québec solidaire’s voting base: urban alter-globalists, feminists and other activists, with a certain amount of Quebec nationalism wrapped in terms of social justice. I know at least one NDP candidate (who’s presumably been elected) described himself as a sovereigntist, and among the francophone NDP MPs he’s probably not the only one with some sympathy for the option. Contrary to what English Canadians seem to believe, there isn’t a discrete choice between “federalist” and “separatist”; most people fall somewhere on the spectrum.
And there is of course the fact that many of those NDP MPs are rookies with no experience of electoral politics, and (even among those who were politically active before the election) some unrealistic expectations about the role they’ll be able to play. But this said, one thing is sure: some of them will be duds, but others will become important politicians in the future. There’s no other way. Many have compared the NDP caucus to Mulroney’s caucus in 1984. During the electoral night broadcast on Radio-Canada (which failed on me just as it was becoming interesting!) they mentioned the case of one Conservative MP, named Lopez or something like that, whom nobody knew anything about, and who completely mystified the interpreter when he first spoke in the Commons, because they couldn’t figure out if he was speaking French or English. But other rookies (they mentioned Benoît Bouchard as an example) were much more successful. So we’ll see; right now I cannot say much more than you.
I’m not too sure if we’ll see the Liberals rise back to the level of major national party after this, though. I get the impression that they might reinvent themselves as a third party concentrated in a few regions.
As for those who talked about Senate reform: it won’t happen. Harper was theoretically committed to it, as part of his Reformer background, but he’s figured out that it’s a political minefield because it raises constitutional concerns and questions of provincial sovereignty. And there’s nothing in it for Harper since he can just continue appointing Conservative senators. So forget about it.
This is the problem with electoral reform in a nutshell;
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It’s never to the benefit of the people who won the last election, and
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You can’t do it without pissing someone off.
Even if Harper and Layton were to work together on Senate reform - and I suspect Harper would still love to change it, but has been stacking it simply because he didn’t have any politically realistic alternatives - there’s no way they could devise a solution that wouldn’t open the Constitutional barrel of monkeys, and that wouldn’t piss off a huge number of their constituents.
Even electoral riding reform is going to be a shitstorm. There remains the proposition to add seats to the House for Ontario, Alberta and B.C., whose voters have their votes substantially watered down by underrepresetation. (The riding of Brampton West has more people and voters than does Prince Edward Island, which has four ridings.) It’s the fair thing to do and it’s the right thing to do, but if they try it the shrieking from the Maritimes and Quebec will be unbelievable. Harper will risk losing fragile but seat-rich support down East and Layton will probably have no choice but to oppose it to keep his Quebec base happy.
The issue seems to be as good as (legally) dead:
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Of course the Conservatives won’t contest it - if there was another election, they wouldn’t win it anyway. All it would do is remove a weak NDP MP and replace her with a better one.
The fact that the NDP now has a bunch of inexperienced flakes and students in their caucus is good news for Conservatives. If the Liberals can be marginalized and the Conservatives and NDP become the major two parties, the Conservatives want the NDP to be as weak and unelectable as possible.
Application of Murphy’s Law: Matt runs for four straight [sic ;)] elections as NDP candidate in a Montreal suburb; the election where Quebec goes overwhelmingly NDP, he doesn’t run. Maybe we can get him in at a by-election?
The NDP favours abolishing the Senate. So no.
I don’t think he was running last time around either. That might be the only consolation for him. Also he doesn’t seem to have posted since March 18 (though he’s visited the SDMB today), so I assume he’s just super-busy.
The Liberal candidate likely would’ve done better to flag all this to the residents before the election.
Now I’m confused as hell:
[Libs, Tories protest controversial NDP MP’s win, but won’t challenge it in court
Could be a bad one if these flakes and students prove to be an effective opposition.
Those inexperienced flakes have exactly the same potential to become usefull and competent members of Government as the inexperienced flakes of the Conservative Party not all that long ago.
Or not.
We shall see.
Young, earnest and eager is a potent weapon, assuming it’s pointing the right way of course.
That’s what she said!
The young MPs now have several years to learn their trade before having to prepare for the next election. Gotta start somewhere.
Brosseau has surfaced, and stated that she has never set foot in the riding.
Traduisez ceci en anglais, s’il vous plait.
Here, I’ve translated it:
Google it yourself if you don’t think my translated synopsis was correct.