I wonder. . .

[velvetpage]

Is Stephen Harper bent on ensuring that Canada goes to the polls before November fourth, specifically so that Canadians will be distracted by politics to the south? Is he trying to win by deflecting attention?

I can think of some other reasons why he'd be trying to force an election now. For one thing, the economy is on tenderhooks at best, and actively tanking in a few areas. Most of the places where it's tanking are not going to give up the vote for the Conservatives anyway, so he doesn't care much about them, beyond throwing pennies their way and siccing his finance minister on them, to tell them it's all Ontario's own fault. He doesn't want to risk the economy souring any further. And he's probably thinking that another minority with Dion running scared is a surer bet than waiting a year and trying to get a majority. The fact that he has to break his own law to force an election right now - well, that's politics, right?

In any case, I expect Harper to send us to the polls sometime around the last week of October, because he's counting on the inertia of a lack of alternatives, combined with the distraction of American politics at fever pitch, to hand him a stronger minority than he's got now. I can't see any way out of that, with Dion leading squatting in the top position in the Liberal party, and the NDP and Green parties not powerful enough to field a nationally-acceptable platform. We might be better off with Harper in a second minority position. It gives the Liberals time and incentive to get their act together, the protest vote might finally net the Greens a long-deserved seat or two, and if push comes to shove, toppling a minority government is far easier than toppling a majority one.

Comments

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Look it this way, Bush is still in office. So it's entirely possible that US tanks will come across your border and annex your country. That means you have chance to vote for Barrack Obama.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

If anything, I'd be more likely to accidentally tick the Liberal box while thinking about Obama. I might anyway - my riding is fielding a former mayor for the Liberals, and he's not half-bad. The NDP guy is okay, but he's not the strong voice Hamilton needs. He was a protest vote for me last time - the Liberal candidate was a parachute candidate over the head of an old university pal of mine, whom I would have voted for in a heartbeat and who the riding association had already picked.

We'll see how the campaign progresses. Right now, I know exactly two things: I will vote, and I will NOT vote Conservative.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I voted Conservative once, when I was young and stupid and living in my father's house. I regretted it before the term was over, but the damage was done - that was the first Mike Harris election, and I was in Teachers' College before the end of that term.

Other than that, I mostly vote NDP, occasionally Liberal, and once Green.

[mrs-dm.livejournal.com]

You may be right about the Green Party getting a seat or two this time around. Combine the probable general voter apathy with the Green zealots' ability to get their vote out, and it's a real possibility.

With one or two Green MP's in the house for a couple of years, that gives enough time for the Green Party to cut its teeth in Parliament and perhaps, move to official opposition in the subsequent federal election. Hey, it happened for the Reform/Alliance Party.

Hey, looks like there may be an upside to this stupid election.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

Apparently the Greens are actually really right wing on economics. I haven't looked at their platform myself, but my dad thinks they're a bunch of right-wing loons and he would never vote NDP.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The Greens move all over the political spectrum - it's really hard to classify them as right- or left-wing. Some of their proposals are very far to the right, others very far to the left. That said, I'd be very careful about voting for them if they had any hope of forming a government. As a protest vote, to get a new party's voice to be heard in parliament, they're pretty safe. There are a lot of Canadians who engage in strategic voting, picking the person who isn't Conservative, for example, who has the best chance of winning; as long as that's the reason for a large chunk of the vote, we're never going to get a fringe party doing much.

They're safe to vote for until they have the momentum to get opposition status. That's when I'll examine their policies and vote their issues as I do with everyone else.

[daednu.livejournal.com]

I think his reasoning is threefold;
1) He doesn't want Canadians to be swept up on Obama love and vote Liberal.
2) He's getting pressure in House to call an election.
3) He wants Stephane Dion's carbon tax to nix the vote for the Liberals. Given enough time and listening to public opinion it would give the Dion the chance to realise this is not the time Canadian's will support paying extra taxes as the economy slides.

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

Well, he really wants to leave the impression that the carbon tax is not just a realignment of existing moneys, that gasoline is to be hit by the new tax, and that cap and trade won't affect gas prices.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I don't know anyone who really understands what the new carbon tax is about, and until the Liberals improve at getting that message out, Harper is going to be successful at painting it in a negative light. Just the name is bad - a carbon tax implies a new tax, not a realignment of old taxes.

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Say the words *topple government* down here in reference to your own, and the Gestapo Homeland Security folks have you disappeared before you can say habeas corpus.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Toppling a government simply means getting enough MPs from any party to vote against a confidence motion, like a finance bill. With a minority government, if all the opposition parties gang up on the governing party, they bring the government down, because the government doesn't have enough sitting MPs to outnumber them. When the government loses a vote on a confidence motion, they are obliged to call an election. (I believe there is a discretionary clause in there where the governor-general can refuse to dissolve parliament and drop the writ, but it's happened very, very rarely - once, I think, about a hundred years ago? Basically, when there's a vote of no confidence, the GG's job is to ceremonially dissolve parliament and call an election.)

With a majority government, toppling the government means convincing government MPs to vote against their party, which is political suicide because your party will usually toss you to the curb. Your best chance at that point is to make it as an independent long enough to get your pension, but you'll never have any real power again. That's why a majority government tends to be exactly as stable as the PM wants it to be.