Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
It's been a pretty dependable rumour these days, but now the Prime Minister's office has finally confirmed it: there will be an official election call for October 14. At 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, Stephen Harper will mosey from 24 Sussex over to Rideau Hall to get permission (albeit a simple technicality) from Governor General Michaëlle Jean to dissolve the 39th Parliament. And here we go again…
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Can the GG say no, tell him to work with the parliament he has?
Sure, technically. But if any GG ever did such a thing we'd be a republic in under 2 years. Most people tolerate the monarchy as a sort of expensive ornament, can you imagine if she actually interfered with the political process?
The Conservatives are going to win a decisive majority government. Then they'll announce that the economy has gone to crap so they need to make drastic cuts to social programs like health care funding and proceed to do so at an alarming rate. Canadians are so dumb. We'd like to think we're smarter than Americans but we're even more dumb. Most of us have fallen for Stephen Harper's minority government performance and assumed this is how he'd act with a majority: like a douche bag on issues that we claim to care about but really don't (e.g., the environment). Wake up idiots. The guy is a major douche bag. He'll make Mike Harris look like a damn communist if he gets unrestricted power.
Harris' reign from 10 years ago is only now being felt what with people whining about the TTC, tuition, crap infrastructure, crap everything! I'm not looking forward to seeing what Canada looks like in 2018 when Harper's had a chance to have his way with the country.
Lands Down - I don't know if it would be worth putting that to the test, but I doubt that would be the outcome. We've been told for the last 4 years that Canadians don't want an election*, and certain parliamentarians have made a point of (vocally) trying to make this gov't work despite its minority status. It would be a ballsy move, but I think a lot of people who have no idea what the GG is for would respect her for it.
wkG - That's what I said 2 years ago. Harper would keep his lunatic core quiet, not rock the boat dramatically, and use the minority as stepping stone into majority.
*I would like to have elections as often as possible, on the other hand, or just replace the whole system with direct democracy...
Speaking of democracy, remember the "democratic deficit" Harper kept harping on about? Whatever happened to his promises to correct the problems? Fixed election date? Free votes? Elected senate?
"Fixed election dates prevent the government from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage... They level the playing field for all parties and the rules are clear for everyone." ... "Fixed election dates stop leaders from trying to manipulate the calender simply for partisan political advantage."
-- Stephen Harper, 2006
The fixed election date bill was passed in May 2006, and October 2009 is the next date according to that schedule.
The only free vote I recall was the disastrous attempt to reopen the same-sex marriage bill for debate, showing he's out of touch with the Canadian people, and only has use for free votes if he thinks he'll gain support where party voting would rule that out.
I don't recall what happened to the revised elected senators bill, but I do know Harper went ahead and appointed 2 senators anyway...
I hope the Liberals and NDP have the sense to point out this stuff.
I can't see how you can have fixed election dates with a minority government. They'd be allowed to disregard the opposition since they couldn't be brought down.
I'd like to see proportional representation brought in, I remember Layton had this at the top of his list of demands in return for supporting Paul Martin's Liberals. Too bad he caved in.
Fixed election dates in a parliamentary system were a retarded idea. Leave it to douche bag Harper to sell it to Canadians and us dumb Canadians to eat it up as a legitimate plan. Honestly, Canadians are dumber than Americans. It's time we admit it. In a time when George W Bush and his neo-cons are at a huge popularity low, Canadians are falling for the same tricks. We should know better, we've watched everything unfold down south.
God, we're about to vote in somebody that couldn't hack it in Toronto, Ontario so he moved out west. You know the type of people that move out west from Toronto are those losers that utterly suck and Harper is one of them. Then they move to Calgary, or Edmonton, or Vancouver, and start "Toronto sucks" rumours. That's who we have as Prime Minister. Somebody who was a failure in the only major league city this country has.
He fricken wrote a book called "The Benign Dictatorship" about the Liberals that you could easily apply to the current political landscape that's keeping him in power in 2008. Again, Canadians are mouth breathing retards. We're going to vote this idiot in so he can play out his fantasies of sleeping in a guest room of the White House. And precisely how he won an award for humanitarianism form B'nai B'rith this year is beyond me.
Toronto get ready to bend over. Harper was a huge and complete failure here and he's going to get revenge once he's got his majority.
The fixed election date law doesn't apply to governments brought down by confidence votes or in other situations in which the government can't govern.
wkG - I didn't mean to imply I support fixed election dates (unless it's something more like "once every year"), but it's something he pushed and pushed and pushed for and now discards for the very reasons he wanted it in the first place. There's a word for that.
I don't think we're dumber than Americans, but our system has spared us a lot of the nonsense they fell victim to (until now?)...
The GG has refused before in an event called the King-Byng affair. But he didn't hold out long and I'm not sure it would ever happen again.
I am hoping that Torontoist (or Spacing Votes) will give us some coverage of when debates are being held and so forth.
I've recently moved to a new riding and I don't even know who is representing the various parties. I did see a buttload of Mario Silva signs out yesterday, and my preliminary research says that he's a shoo-in.