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Government 'Crisis'

 
Old 12-04-2008 at 12:55 PM   #1
temara.brown
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Government 'Crisis'
The throne speech was no less than a week ago, the election only seven weeks ago, and already there is trouble in Ottawa. On December 2, the Liberals and NDP with support of the Bloc Quebecois decided to form a coalition to oust the current government. This coalition would vote non-confidence in the Harper government on Monday and place Liberal leader Stefan Dion in as prime minister.

There's already a wikipedia page about it if you need to catch up on the news haha: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Ca...ic al_dispute

Last night, the party leaders all addressed the country in light of the coalition issue. You can see the coverage of that here.

Governor General Michaelle Jean met with Harper this morning where she then agreed to prorogue the parliament. CTV has had pretty good coverage of it.

I was surprised that there hasn't been any other discussion started on this topic yet here on macinsiders so I figured I'd get some going myself...
Old 12-04-2008 at 01:09 PM   #2
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Honestly I don't understand why this is all coming about, keeping my personal beliefs about Harper out of this, all I can say is this: If Canada had wanted Dion as PM they would have voted for him, and they didn't.
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Old 12-04-2008 at 01:09 PM   #3
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This REALLY pisses me off. They are wasting their time in office doing these kinds of things rather than dealing with the issues they were brought in to deal with.

This year was the first year I voted, and granted, I did not vote conservative, but, I dont want things changed now. Voting happened, yes, hes not the best, but, he's not the worst. And on the other hand, I didnt realize Dion would be the PM. What is he thinking? No one wanted him a couple weeks ago, what does he think has changed since then. He would make a terrible PM. With him as the flagboy, the liberals did very poorly since people generally don't like him or his ideas.

This is the reason people don't vote anymore, because, they all stink
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Old 12-04-2008 at 01:35 PM   #4
temara.brown
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Harper's talk after his meeting with the govenor general this morning stated that the proroguement of parliament would allow them to cool their heads and prepare the budget for January. They would then ask Canadians what they would like to do while preparing the conservative budget for January.

The coalition's plan was to have the non-confidence vote on Monday. If this vote were to happen on Monday and the Harper were to lose confidence, then the coalition would have pushed for Dion. Harper went to the govenor general this morning, got the proroguement, and so now the vote isn't going to happen Monday and parliament is suspended until January.

They don't all smell.

Last edited by temara.brown : 12-04-2008 at 01:40 PM.
Old 12-04-2008 at 06:47 PM   #5
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Yay for politiking
I believe this break is needed for the conservatives to restart. They tried to push too much stuff at the wrong time. I believe they have now realized they are going to have to make concessions in order to move forward. That being said, the Liberals/NDP/Bloc should also be willing to make concessions.

But i guess this all comes down to the lack of a bailout plan. The way I see it, a bailout wouldn't work because there aren't any serious problems to be fixed in Canada. We are hurting because of the problems in States (and to a lesser extent Europe). Once the economies of the world turn around our economy will turn around, throwing money at our economy isn't going to get anything started. The only thing came be done are public works projects to keep people employed.
Old 12-04-2008 at 08:46 PM   #6
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Serious problems being? There are LOTS of problems with/in Canada.
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Old 12-04-2008 at 11:21 PM   #7
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I think this is outrageous. A LOT of money was spent on this year's elections for the country to vote who they wanted in power. It was clear who they wanted - HARPER. Why mess everything up and put into power someone who wasn't voted on by the country. Dion is leaving too! He won't be leading the Liberal party much longer, so why back someone who will be gone soon? The parties who lost need to realize they did, accept it, and try to work with the winning party (CONSERVATIVES) to make change happen and do their jobs.
Old 12-06-2008 at 12:58 AM   #8
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Non-confidence in the house happens and governments change. It is up to the govenor general to ensure a functioning parliament so she can seek to call another election or to allow the opposition leader or in this case, the coalition, to govern.
This time, the only way to do it was through a coalition, which necessarily involved the bloc. Some people argue that the current minority government is undemocratic compared to the coalition seeing as how 62% of voters, a majority, voted for these parties so they should be allowed to form. There is nothing in the constitution that prevents this from happening and it happens elsewhere in the world too (so says CTV). I'm not a fan of the coalition but I'm just putting out both sides of the argument.

What I think is crazy is how quickly the house lost confidence in the conservative government. The catalyst for all of this was the economic update, which spoke of cuts to party funding. No there wasn't any 'bail out' package but I thought the conservatives had made their attack plan for how to deal with Canada's situation clear. Was it that easy for the house to lose confidence in the party that had the most Canadian support? Am I missing something? =S
Old 12-06-2008 at 09:02 AM   #9
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I think the problem people have with the coalition is that before and during the election all of the parties were against having one, but now they have gone back on that promise.

I dont think any party could do a better job right now because nobody knows exactly how to correct the issues at hand. And thats why its best to be prudent at a time like this.

I believe (others feel free to disagree with me) that this is a bit of a power grab by the liberals and NDP. Politicians have rarely have all of the countries best interest at heart and i don't think this is an example when they do.

Last edited by JeffB : 12-06-2008 at 09:04 AM.
Old 12-06-2008 at 09:13 AM   #10
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I was talking about problems related to the financial crisis. Not things like poverty, crime etc. that go beyond this.

As much as people hate to hear it, if it wasn't for societies inability to realize that you cant borrow your way out of debt and living within your means we wouldn't be in this situation. It wasn't just the bank and mortgages faults for providing these loans, but also the borrowers for taking on a loan that they couldn't afford. When you have a savings rate in the states that is in the negatives you are bound to have major problems. They say you are supposed to save between 10-15% of what you earn in order to maintain your wealth through retirement (and thats not cruise the world retirement)



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