The Government sits to the Speaker’s right. When you look towards the Speaker’s chair, as in the linked picture, your left is actually the Speaker’s right.
Don’t believe it for a heartbeat. The Liberals would sooner go back to the polls in 12 months than move to PR. It’s absolutely against their interests. If they appear contrite and humble for a year or two, and the Conservatives make a couple bonehead moves,* the Liberals stand a good chance of returning to a majority with the current electoral system. If we move to proportional representation, it’s a pretty decent bet that there won’t be another majority government in the foreseeable future. That wouldn’t be a bad outcome, to my way of thinking, but naturally the Liberal Party may disagree with me on that point.
*RickJay very nicely described the historic bungles of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party. He’s entirely right that they have to patiently wait to gain legitimacy and more widespread appeal. But I wouldn’t put any money on them being smart in that regard.
You know, regarding this potential 154-154 tie vote scenario, I had a thought today. The Lib/NDP should try to get Chuck Cadman into the Speaker’s chair to give them a 154-153 edge. Or anyone from the putative opposition, really. I realize it’s traditional for a member of the governing party to be Speaker, but there’s no rule anywhere saying it has to be.
I suppose I’m the last person to think of this, though…seems pretty obvious.
In my opinion, it’s because our Senate, being appointed, doesn’t have democratic legitimacy.
Our Senate was to serve a similar function to the U.S. Senate - provide regional representation, while the Commons was based strictly on representation by population. However, as Canada became more democratic, the Senate could no long legitimately fulfill the role of regional representation. So, the Commons now fulfills both roles - representing the people individually, but also providing regional represenation to the smaller provinces, just as the smaller states are over-represented in Congress when you include their Senate delegations.
If we change our Senate to an elected one, the pressure would likely be great to move the Commons back to a pure rep. by pop. apportionment.
The CBC was broadcasting from the Parliament Building. It’s been a while since I was there, but it looks to me like they were in the Hall of Honour in Centre Block, where they hang the old Prime Ministers.*
*The paintings of the old Prime Ministers, that is.
Happened in Saskatchewan in 1999, remember? Romanow was returned with a minority. Of the three Liberal members, two entered Cabinet in a formal coalition, and the third became Speaker of the Assembly.
And which ended up being a disastrous choice for the Saskatchewan Liberal party, which lost all credibility.
Entirely different deal, since the Liberals weren’t real opposition in that instance. That’d be like putting an NDP into the Speaker’s chair in this scenario - doesn’t help with the vote. They need to pick a Tory or Bloc type, or Mr. Cadman.
And when was the last time the Saskatchewan Liberals had any credibility anyways, Raygun? They’d have picked up a seat or two last time, just like always, if it hadn’t been so bugger close and people were staying away from them to vote stategically against whichever of the Sask Party or NDP they detested more.
They had a premier as recently as the 70s, IIRC. I remember that election pretty clearly and for the first time in a long time, Jim Melenchuk had presented the Liberals as an alternative voice in the province, along the lines of the slow build that was talked about earlier in the thread for the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives federally. He pissed off a lot of people that voted for them by joining the coalition.
That’d be Ross Thatcher, Liberal premier from 64-71. The Liberals may have remained a significant force in the early Blakeney years, but by the time I was becoming aware of politics just prior to the shift from Blakeney to Devine, there were never more than an handful of them in the Legislature.
Now, I was out of the province and not following things very closely during the Melenchuk thing, and I’m not saying you’re wrong that he pissed people off. I just don’t think they would have returned to prominance anyways, and I think the current shutout was due more to strategic voting than to any serious unhappiness with the current Liberals. There was some fallout from the coalition, but that came in the form of not re-electing the Liberal MLA’s who were running as NDP candidates this time round. I’ve never heard anyone rant on about Karwacki’s shortcomings, anyways. The common refrain during the campaign was “That Karwacki seems like a decent fellow, and I’d like to have another voice in provincial politics, but this time round I’m more concerned about getting rid of the NDP/keeping the Sask Party out.” People naturally have misgivings about the level of experience, etc., but that’s always the case with a party that’s been marginalized for decades, and I’m sure people were saying the same thing about Melenchuk.
The reason they changed their name was in an attempt to get the PC’s to join them. It didn’t work at that time, but people realized that as long as there were two right of center parties neither would ever hold power.
Well, as the PM appoints the judges without having to consult with anyone else, it might be nice for the rest of us, through our representatives in Parliament, to have a say in things.
Most of what you wrote in your post I agree with, but I do take exceptions with some of it.
‘Cletus’? ‘True Conservatives’? No, we in the West don’t think you are necessarily stupid for voting the way you do, we just get tired of being called racists, bigots, and rednecks by people who think they are better than we are. Your comments smack of ‘There, there. Better let the grownups decide what to do. Go and play now and we’ll let you know what we’ve decided.’ And in the mean time it is expected that we send barrels full of money eastwards to support the corruption we object against. And people wonder about why the West feels alienated?
I always find it amazing that many Albertans are willing to totally ignore the fact that Ontario is the biggest province, and deserves appropriate representation in Parliament.
I guess ridings outside Ontario, Quebec and BC just deserve to be “more equal” than ours… 
The next time we get a PM from outside of Ontario or Quebec that lasts longer than 9 months, we can talk about where the power lies. My point is that while it is slightly unequal in respect to strict population, it has not shown its face in terms of inequal power in the Commons. Ontario decides every election, even this one, despite the inital hype about all the Western ridings settling the score. I’m not even really trying to play the Western Alienation card, despite my first sentence, I’m just saying that realistically, Ontario is hardly getting the shaft.
And Quebec has flipped over to slightly over represented now, by 2 seats (though it’s unique in having a Constitutional guarantee of ridings).
Then I was correct; it was pointless. Changing the name before you actually arrive at an agreement to merge the parties is reeeee-tarded. Had the Reform Party retained its name and leader going into the 2000 election there is no doubt in my mind they would have done much better. Of course, part of that is just that Stockwell Day is a horse’s ass and Preston Manning isn’t, but the name switch unquestionably was a boneheaded move.
The Prime Minister is determined through elections, is he not?
In any event, the events of this election would suggest that the CPC was way off base here. The CPC’s endless blather about how Parliament should decide this sort of thing instead of the courts is all well and fine, but people voted against the CPC primarily because of these issues. It’s fine to say the voters should decide… but they HAVE decided. They decided in droves to vote against the CPC because of its apparently policy of using the notwithstanding clause to roll back people’s rights. It’s crazy to say last week that you want the people to have a say in minority rights and then complain this week that when the people do have their say, they were wrong. The verdict of the people was clear.
In any event, I still don’t think you’re quite grasping the concept here. The problem is not that the CPC has a firm stance on a literal reading of the Constitution - on that issue all the parties are inconsistent anyway - or that the CPC likes democracy. The problem is that the CPC seemed to be preoccupied with getting back at the homos. It wasn’t like we were presented with a long list of Constitutional issues; it was all about gays, with some sideline comments about abortion. Use the notwithstanding clause so churches don’t have to marry gay couples (even though nobody ever suggested they should have to.) Use the notwithstanding clause to roll back gay marriage. Take sexual orientation out of the hate crimes law. When the party did not have a clear platform, people looked at the patterns and assumed the worst. Combined with the bizarre fetish over the child porn issue, it was as if
Look, I went into the election intending to vote Conservative, and I ended up holding my nose and voting Conservative. But I had to hold my nose, and I’m not terribly disappointed they lost. I do not want Randy White to be justice minister.
I don’t think you’re a rednecks or a racists. But RANDY WHITE sure as hell is. So is Cheryl Gallant, who’s from Ontario. So why did your party of choice allow them to be a spokespersons for the party?
THAT’S THE PROBLEM. It’s not that Westerners are evil, or even all that different. The problem, as I patiently explained, is that the Reform-Alliance-Conservative party has never done a good job explaining why anyone should vote for them.
If I may sum up RickJay’s admirable posts, as far as I can tell from the comments made by the party representatives:
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Reform/Alliance/“New” Conservatives™ look at Toronto’s Gay Pride parade and see enthusiastic, unabashed sinners who must be stopped before the fires of heaven fall on Canada :eek:
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Liberals look at the same parade and see voters
I also have to say that RickJay summed it up excellently for me. I would prefer to have a centre-right party, like the old PC party, leading the government, but it was just too difficult to accept them when the made the comments and statements they did. It really came down to that. Harper’s comments about Martin supporting child porn, other comments about gay marriage and abortion, all of this was too much to accept. I absolutley refuse to support any party that makes these things election issues. Elections in Canada should be about how to spend our abundance of tax revenue properly and how to relate to the rest of the world, not about civil liberties which are no-brainers to begin with. That’s where the CPC screwed themselves, or I would have considered voting for them.
I can live with the “scandals”, such as they were, because those are really more about bureaucractic mismanagement than the actions of MPs or the PM. Sure, directives come from above, but the real meat of the waste is conducted by shoddy management practices and outright corruption by ADMs, DGs and other managers, all of who are civil servants and unelected. The scandals still piss me off, but less at the government in the House and more at the Public Service (which I work for, but we don’t waste a dime 
)
Another thing I agree with is about the Reform/Alliance history of losing. As RickJay points out as well, the Reform/Alliance party never seemed to be able to understand that they just didn’t win. They always acted as though they should have won, and tried to make too many changes and lay blame on someone rather than being patient and staying the course to build their image effectively. Hopefully, in this instance, they will do so, and patiently attempt to build a new image that can be embraced by all parts of the country, but I won’t be surprised if the self-implode again. They’re kind of like the Italian national soccer team, where whenever they lose, they can’t understand how they could possibly have lost, and then the finger-pointing starts and the coach gets fired after only 3 games and a whole new system is put in place. Patience, Mr. Harper, patience.
Before you find it ‘Amazing’, you might consider the argument is a little more complex than that. For example, you might look into why the U.S. has both a house and a Senate. Allocating power purely on the basis of population leads to geographically isolated minorities from being continually ignored. That’s why Wyoming gets the same amount of power in the Senate as New York.
And think about what the United States would be like if representation was purely proportional. The country would vote straight Democratic all the time, depite the wishes of the large middle swath of the country, because New York and California would continually dominate the political landscape. That’s not good for diversity or national harmony.
And that’s exactly what happens in Canada. Alberta is more conservative than even most states in the U.S., totally out of step with the rest of Canada. If we had an elected, effective senate then at least we would have geographical representation and could influence policy. But the lack of such a body, plus the strong party discipline in Canada, results in total domination by the elected government, which means total domination of the east.
And it is doubly annoying when we provide so much to Canada, and get treated like a bunch of rednecks and yokels. This really got driven home to me during the election coverage - you could tell that most of the commentators could barely contain their disdain for the ‘west’ and the PCs. And in an amazing display of ‘unbiased’ coverage, when Lloyd Robertson announced that McLellan had held onto her Liberal seat in Edmonton, he said, “Here’s some great news - Anne McLellan has maintained her seat in Edmonton Center.” Great news? Thanks for wearing your preferences on your sleeve.
??
Just a typo, I presume, but a somewhat interesting one, since I don’t think there was ever much in the way of disdain for the Progressive Conservatives from the mainstream media, even though they routinely swept Alberta. In any event, I didn’t notice any particular disdain for the new Conservatives on that bastion of left-wingedness, the CBC. Of course, I wouldn’t be as sensitive to it as you, but certainly there was nothing as blatant as that sort of cheerleading.
Sam, that just makes no damned sense at all. If the House of Representatives was exactly proportional, with each seat representing precisely the same number of votes, the only way the House would always be Democratic is if the Democratic Party won most of the seats by virtue of getting most of the votes. What is bad about the party with the most votes… winning the most seats? In a two party system it’s a near-perfect system in terms of providing honest representation. And how is it the Republicans have won House majorities in recent years if what you claim is true?
In addition, it’s simply not the case that the U.S. and Canadian situations can be necessarily compared. New York and California can’t dominate the landscape the way Ontario does because they domn’t have an especially large share of the population; together they account for maybe 18% of the population, maybe a bit less - only half the share Ontario holds. In a country with 50 states, it’s simply not as big a deal to ask a state like California with just 11% of the nation’s population to hold one out of 50 votes as it is to ask a province with 39% of the nation’s population to hold just 10%. The U.S. Senate is generally NOT a place for geographic representation the way a Canadian senate would be - there’s severe porkbarrelry to be sure, but with 50 states, geographic alliances and rivalries almost never happen. It is certain to happen in a Canadian senate.
For God’s sake, man, that’s why you have a provincial government. The entire POINT of a federal system is to give provinces a say by giving them provincial governments with considerable power, while the federal government is supposed to run national affairs. That’s why it’s structured the way it is.
I’d like an elected Senate, too, if only on principle. And I think a lot of posters don’t realize some of the unintended consequences that would arise from proportional representation. But that fact that Albertans have picked the loser four years running is not a flaw in the system - it’s just that the Conservatives have run shitty campaigns. It is not a structual weakness that caused Randy White and Cheryl Gallant to say stupid things, it is not a structural weakness that caused Brian Mulroney and his gang to destroy the PC party, is is not a structural weakness that Ontarians support gay rights, and it is not a structural weakness that the Reform/Alliance party made little progress in 11 years and asked Stephen Harper to do a decade of work in two months. If you lose, you lose. That’s life in a democracy. I’m real sorry that twelve million people live in Ontario, but that’s the way it is.
I would point out that Ontarians voted conservative governments into power in 1995 and 1999, enthusiastically so, and prior to 1985 voted the PCs into power every year for two generations. Ontarians will happily vote conservative if you give them a reason to. The Harris campaigns clearly explained what the PC Party would do if elected and why their platform was a good idea. You didn’t have OC backbenchers babbling about how they’d take our rights away and torpedoing Harris’s campaigns. Jesus, we’re not fucking stupid, you know. Given a strong enough argument we’ll vote any of the major parties in.
Alberta has more or less exactly the representation in Parliament it deserves - a few seats short, but not much. The fact that the voters in Alberta have chosen a party that the rest of the country did not choose isn’t a flaw in the voting system, it’s just a matter of preference. The fact that it’s happened four years running is a matter of circumstance and Brian Mulroney; I don’t remember Alberta whining about not having a say in the government in 1984 or 1988, when their party of choice won the elections running away.
Albertans have chosen to vote conservative as the nation’s most predictable, monolithically voting province since time immemorial. That’s your choice. Don’t harp on anyone else about theirs. Frankly, I’m seeing in your comments exactly the sort of defeatism that led to one Reform/Alliance blunder and idiocy after another over the last eleven years. The Conservatives did great. They reduced a popular government to a minority in a strong economy - an unprecedented achievement. Jesus, don’t blow it.
And frankly, I didn’t see the bias you claim. In fact, for half the night the pundits just went right on reassuring the viewer that the Conservatives were going to do great, that their numbers would pop up any minute, even after it was plainly obvious it wasn’t going to happen.
I was going to suggest a #3 for your list:
After the election an Alberta MP (I don’t remember who it was) was grousing and asking the question “How badly do the liberal have to perform before Ontario will vote them out?”
To me, the answer was totally straight forward - the liberals have to be worse than Brian Mulroney and the GST. Honestly - every time I pay for something and have to add the 7% onto my purchase I’m reminded of the conservatives, Brian Mulroney, and what a total bollocks job he did. Personally, the sponsorship scandal, in real world terms, is nothing.
I think in order to do better in Ontario, Harper and the conservatives will have to
a) do a better job of distancing themselves from the Mulroney conservatives and
b) do a better job of getting their party platforms on things like gay marriage, abortion, capital punishment, etc out there.
RickJay is correct - the conservative party did a really, really crappy job of lessening fears about George W. Bush style politics being their mandate. They would have to address that in a big way before a lot of Eastern voters would go their way.