Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Oh Canada....

Two months ago, Canada had an election. I am sure I told you about it... oh wait I did right here. However I didn't tell you how it ended; the Conservatives were returned to office with a minority government which means with the recent election of Obama and the hammerlock that Pelosi has on the House that Canada may have a more right-wing government than the US. Who would have thunk?

Well then again maybe not...

You think with their election over and it being a nice and peaceful country, that it would be safe to pull your attention away from Canada and focus on more useful things... like the disagreement within the Obama family on what sort of puppy to get. However right when you thought you were out, those Canucks just pull you right back in because by Monday, the Conservatives might be out on their ear a mere two months after they were elected.

Let's see if I got this straight....

The Conservatives have a minority government which means they have less than half the seats in Parliament... almost a majority but about 10 seats short. That means they need to get the votes of somebody else. This they managed to do for their last minortiy government, with fewer seats, for the past 2 1/2 years. Shouldn't be a problem right? Well I need to explain some Canadian political workings first but you can just skip ahead to the end for the punch line if you want.

This all started when the Conservatives attached a provision in a major financial bill that would eliminate public funding for political parties. Instant uproar and just not a smart move. The 3 main opposition parties (Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democrats) all got together and decided two things. First they would vote down the bill on Monday, supposedly because there wasn't enough fiscal stimulus but in reality because they wanted to keep their public funding; if a major bill goes down so does the government so the Conservatives may fall at tha time. The second thing they decided was after the Conservatives fell to agree to form their own governement with the Liberals and the New Democrats sharing cabinet seats and the Bloc agreeing to help legislation.

So what's the fuss? All normal British parliamentary stuff right?

Uh Uh

First look at the proposed alternative government. The leading party will be the Liberals who lost their majority government in 2006 after 13 years in power and lost even more seats two months ago. Their performance was so dismal that the Liberal leader, Stephane Dion, had to resign because he had no credibility. However since his replacement won't be picked until May, if the alternative government takes power he will be the new Canadian prime minsiter. in the mean time he would be prime minister. The New Democrats have been on the outside of government since forever, they have never tasted power because they just think Canada isn't left wing enough; they are like the Bernie Sanders and Cynthia McKinney of Canadian politics. Then you have the Bloc... these are the guys who want to break up the country by taking Quebec out of Canada.

Whatever you want to say about the Conservatives and a mandate or lack thereof, these guys have that much less. After all just two months they got smacked around hard in the polls, but now they are on the verge of power; their leader just got called from packing his office to picking out drapes for his prime minisieterial office and all thanks to the decision to the throw the keys of power to a bunch of socialists and traitors.

Okay enough of the trivia because right now your head is hurting, here's the key thing to know...

Canada is headed for a constitutional crisis with the likes unseen since... gosh ever. Well maybe up there with the separatist votes in 1980 and 1995. By Monday the Canadian Governor General is going to be faced with a decision on whether to accept the Frankenstein of an alternative government which has no popular support and no reason besides power during perhaps the most critical financial time over the last 75 years. Or she can call another election, two months after the last one and the third in 3 years.

So let's see... governments falling two months after election. Three elections in three years. Frankenstein coalitions that have no popular support cobbled together to take power. What does that sound like to you? Post-war Italy? Third Republic France?

This isn't good.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 5:14 PM