Here we go again.

[velvetpage]

Canada's going to the polls in May. The government fell today. (Yes, it really is that fast. The minimum time frame is 36 days; it looks like the election will happen May 9th, though it won't be called officially until Harper meets with the Governor General tomorrow. He will officially dissolve parliament and call the election.

There's not a lot that's good in this. None of the opposition parties are really ready for an election, and the Conservatives are up in the polls. The economy is still recovering and people generally see the Cons as stronger there than the other parties (though it was the Liberals who balanced the budget and kept it balanced for a decade, and it was the Liberals who protected the bank regulations so that the collapse that hit the rest of the Western World was mitigated here. Meanwhile, the Cons have run up the deficit, cutting taxes where they should have held and increasing spending in at least some of the wrong areas, so I'm not buying that the Cons are strong on the economy.) The ethical issues the Cons are facing at the moment don't seem to be a big deal to anyone off Parliament Hill, mostly because the Liberals have some skeletons in their closet so nobody trusts them to be better than the Cons.

So it looks like we'll get another minority Conservative government, which Harper will bill as a mandate, and use to do more stuff only 30% of Canadians had any desire for him to do.

I'm debating offering to run the Student Vote at school for the fours and fives, but the grade five teacher has run it before and she can do it now. An election is awesome for grade five - that's the year kids learn about government, and the quantity of election materials that come out is always astounding. Free classroom materials! Anyway, I suspect I'll mostly stay out of it this time. I'll vote, but that's it.

Comments

[amyura.livejournal.com]

What were the Bloc, Libs and NDP thinking?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure. Maybe that it wasn't going to get any better by waiting, and bringing them down on the budget was a smart move? They almost got the support of the NDP, which is certainly an odd-couple kind of thing, by throwing several bones their way in the budget, but obviously it wasn't enough at the end of the day for the NDP to prop up the government - the political cost of that would be huge for them.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

For once they put principle ahead of party interests by doing the right thing and bringing down a contemptuous and contemptible government. I've got nothing but respect for them.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I see the value in bringing down a bad government when the likelihood is excellent that it will be replaced by a new and not-much-improved version of the same government. Standing on principle is wonderful. Actually making some headway on that principle would be even better.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

It's a risk, granted. But if you don't stand up for what is truly important, that's even worse, IMO.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

The polls are showing some interesting things (if you ignore the whole recent debate about how completely inaccurate they are now because they can't get representative samples anymore). For example, EKOS has a new poll out today that shows 47% believe the gov't's moving in the wrong direction, while 41% think it's going in the right direction, but a lot of that number consists of the Cons' base vote, where the number is closer to 80% - for everyone else, it's 10-20%. Also, the economy isn't registering as a key issue with most - and the Cons were planning to make that the central plank of their campaign.

If you weren't following the whole brouhaha over polling in this country, i discuss it a bit in this blog post: http://thoughtundermined.com/?p=1246

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

So, the Cons are polling high in the ridings they're already sure of, but not high enough in the rest of the country to get the seats? That's quite encouraging.

I think I need to figure out who the Liberal candidate is in this riding, if there is one yet; I will consider voting Liberal if the candidate is someone local and if the Liberal seat is necessary to tip the balance. Otherwise, it's probably the Greens for me.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

Yet, with the Cons in contempt of Parliament, how could they let it pass?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

They have several times before, because they were even less ready for an election than they are now.

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

They haven't let a contempt of parliament charge pass. This is different.