Canadian Election 2006

[Simkid]

Basically the notwithstanding clause is pretty scary, but the truth is that to use it would be so  politically damaging that it isn't a real threat to most rights.  Personally, I think that we need a fairly long list of smallish modifcations to the constitution, but now I'm really going off topic.  As for the result, I can't bring myself to think anything good will come of this government after the experience in Ontario, but I honestly expect an election soon after the new Liberal leader is elected, and think that they will form a government  (though likly yet another weak minority).

[Johno]

Minority government?  Eugh!!!!

One nice feature of the Australian political system: Although a minority government is theoretically possible, it is for all practical purposes impossible because the lower house tends to exclude parties with very small representation of the community. 

We have a two house system.  The upper house (Senate) is elected by proportional representation; here you may get independents and minor parties.  Legislation must be passed by the senate, but may not be proposed there.

The lower house (Representatives, or Reps) is based on geographical divisions, elected by simple preferential voting.  Although in theory any party may stand for election (or any independant individual), minor parties are rare in the Reps, and independents are rarer than sabre-toothed tigers (I can remember two in the last 20 years).  Generally speaking, the function of minor parties and independents in the Reps is to funnel preferences in favour of the major parties (Liberal = conservative, Labor = working class mildly radical).

You therefore always have a government majority in the Reps.  Generally speaking, a government in its first term will have a hostile senate.  A majority in both houses is nearly always the result of a government performing well in three or more consecutive terms.  I believe that this is a system that encourages strong government.

[Simkid]

Personally I don't mind minority governments.  Many countries are able to deal with HIGHLY fragmented houses (Isreal comes to mind), and I think that this is ultimatly the best form of representation that people can have.  The problems we have with them in Canada are a direct result of the rareness of minorities, that makes our politicians expect majorities. 

As for our Senate, it really doesn't do much in terms of actual legislation, it's only real purpose (except for a few notable exceptions in the last couple decades) being review.  The Senators are appointed by the PM for lifetime terms (actually until age 75 now), and there isn't much chance of that changing  .

[snake river rufus]

Your senate cannot propose legislation? What a time saver. I wish we had that down here.
In effect,it sometimes appears that our senators have a lifetime appointment as well.

[Johno]

Here's a key ideological issue, though - if you see government's main role as being representation (as most people under the age of 25 do), minority is cool.

But soon you get old and cynical, and you start to think that it's better to have a stable government that writes cheques on time and minimises unnecessary elections.  As one of my very politically savvy friends said, without a trace of irony, "The minor party is the enemy of good government."

Remember, it was a minority government that brought Hitler to power.  He would not have been able to get a foothold in Australia.

[LunarOrbit]

I'm not sure if our government got any real work done from 2004-2005, they seemed totally focused on defending themselves from attacks from the other parties. Hopefully we won't get more of the same this time around.

[Simkid]

It's not that the Senate CAN'T propose legislation, they just DON'T.  They are supposed to stay above political fighting and serve as representitives of their region, which usually is interpreted as leaving legislation to the house.  Additionally, it would be quite difficult to get real public support for an appointed body introducing much legislation.

As to minority vs majority, yes a majority will be more efficient, but I will take a reaonably responsible miority (somthing we don't really ahve at the moment) at the cost of some efficiency.  By responsible, I mean an oposition that doesn't cause elections whenever they can find the votes, and is willing to actually work with the government (somthing that the Conservatives sort of did, but no where near where they should have).  The problem I have with majorities is that they are just TOO powerful, without a Senate that is likly to oppose anyhting it basically gives the PM near total power on any matter that the party is even reasonably agreable about.

[Johno]

Not if you have an effective safeguard. For us it is the Governor General - the Queen's representative, he or she is the de facto head of state.  The GG has the power to dismiss the government on two grounds:

1) That the government in power has breached the terms of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia

2) That a situation has arisen in which the parliament cannot effectively govern (e.g. the senate refuses to pass the government's supply bill, and the government cannot sign cheques).

This power is used very sparingly indeed.  A government has only been dismissed once, and it was in 1975; yet Australians still know exactly what is meant when you mention "The Dismissal". 

This was due to 2) above.  Usually, the Senate will pass the Supply bill (if it is a hostile senate, perhaps with amendments) but in this case the Prime Minister's fiscal policy had been very radical (I would say Irresponsible, but that's open to debate) and the Reserve bank was refusing to work with him.  He proposed to bypass the Reserve Bank and take out a loan from a dodgy Pakistani finance broker.  At this the Senate (which was hostile) didn't amend the Supply bill, it just refused to pass it at all.  The government could not write a cheque, and was therefore unable to function.  The GG dismissed the government, and we had an election of both houses (usually it's the reps and half the senate, so Senators normally have 5-6 year terms and Reps 3-4).

The GG's decision was upheld by the public, who ousted the government by a huge margin.

[Duane]

You'd better hope that Harpers's guys are nothing like Mulroney's . . . that guy was directly responsible for the destruction of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, which proceeded to give the Liberals free wins for the next 13 years. Plus, Mulroney gave us the "much loved" GST

I think Harper will try to distance himself from that legacy but I cannot bring myself to trust a Conservative majority government.

Here's a westerner's point of view. (Gawd, first post and I'm already arguing politics *shrug*) What is so misunderstood about the GST was that the WTO degreed in a number of rulings that Canada's hidden Manufacturers Tax was an unfair tax that did not conform with WTO member state status and was judged unfair. Canada was told by the WTO that we would not be allowed to join into the next round of world trade talks unless the tax was eliminated and replaced with a value added tax. Thus was born the GST.

Whene Cretchin (damn, I can never spell his name right!) campaigned on the promise that he would eliminate the GST, he knew he could not eliminate it or he would face the wraith of the WTO. He knew it as he was campaigning. He knew it when he put it in his blue book. And sure enough, when he got elected, he did nothing about it. Of course, Cretchin lied about many things, but this comment about the GST just needed to be made.

While I am not a big fan of Brian Mulroney, in that I disagree with the way that he changed Canada's debt load, Canada was well on its way to prosperity after 16 years of Liberal mismanagement under Trudeau. The Conservatives inherited the largest debt ever seen, and spent the first 8 years of thier mandate trying to get out from under it. During their reign they successfully defeated a referendum vote in Quebec by a wide margin, got us accepted in the WTO, penned the NAFTA, assured us greatly opened access to the largest market in the world while at the same time keeping Canada's name well respected in the rest of the world.

Cretchin lied (&lied &lied), made massive patronage appointments and created huge scandals, (in)directly stole hundred of millions of dollars andwasted hundreds of millions more, foisted the gun resgistry on us (another $1.3 billion wasted), alienated our biggest trading partner, sullied Canada's reputation around the world, turned the PMO into a near dictatorship, very nearly lost the 2nd Quebec referendum, alienated the western provinces and was in power during the time when Canadian citizens got to experience the joy of having the highest per capita tax abd debt load of any industrialized nation in the world. His economic policies were essentially to continue the work already done by the Progressive Conservatives before him. He cancelled a helicopter deal that cost Canadian tax payers $400,000,000, leaving us with the outdated Sea Kings, then turned around and purchased an inferior helicoptor to what the Mulroney government already had in the works for $1,500,000,000 more than the original contract.

I could go on. Turner became captain of a ship that was already listing and nearly sunk, and all Gomrey did was toss the bailing bucket overboard. I don't know yet if Harper is the answer, but he is head and shoulders better than the Crechtin/Turner government before him.

[DonPMitchell]

Is it a myth that The Dismissal was ordered by the USA, to remove a government it didn't like?  Sounds like leftist conspiracy theories, but that's the story I heard from an Australian friend years ago.

[Johno]

Absolute bull.  The left wing in Australia has never been able to cope with the fact that Mr Whitlam was dismissed fairly, and that the Governor General's decision was vindicated by a landslide electoral loss (Mr Whitlam was expecting a landslide win, as were the media, prompting him to say, on hearing of the result "Well, the Silent Majority has indeed been silent.")

Consider this:
* The government was beset by scandal.  At least one high profile minister was forced to resign in disgrace.

* There was a hostile senate, but the Prime Minister was too arrogant to accept any compromise on his irresponsibly radical fiscal policy.  He pressed ahead despite a clear warning that the senate could not accept such a rash supply bill.

* There was a cult of personality in the Labor party (which remains today) that believed that Gough Whitlam was bulletproof.  It was inconceivable that he could lose an election.

* Due to the above situations, the government was unable to pay its bills.  My father was living in government-owned accomodation in Canberra during this time, and during the winter the central heating was switched off, so desperate was the government to save money.

To Labor hacks today, it is utterly unthinkable that the great icon of the party could be wrong.  This is despite the fact that he remains to this day a man with a terrible superiority complex!  So they must invent concepts to exaplain the inexplicable.  The conspiracy idea is common, as is the "we must have a republic so this doesn't happen again" concept.

It is also worth noting that followers of whitlam have been in charge of the Labor party throughout the last three elections, and have each time managed to lose by a fresh landslide.  The Labor party in Australia currently has all the electoral appeal of a rasher of bacon in Jerusalem equidistant between a mosque, a synagogue and a health farm.  It will remain unelectable until such time as its leadership begins to grasp that unpleasant truth - that the Australian Public have decided that WHITLAM WAS WRONG!

Sorry for the long diatribe.  I had listen to the usual variety of leftist professors in University history, with their sneering hatred for anyone different to themselves, and their smug "we recognise Whitlam was a genius but the public wasn't ready for his groundbreaking ideas" philosophy.  Even after a stormy tutorial in which I pointed out that a government that cannot write a cheque is not able to govern and is therefore ipso facto wrong(!), their attitude remained (in effect) "my mind is made up.  Don't try to confuse me with facts."

[DonPMitchell]

Thanks, that's what I thought.

There was a recent study that showed that the reasoning center of the brain shuts down when people are confronted with facts that contradict a deeply held belief.  In other words, "In one ear and out the other". 

[sparkmaster]

Politics...uhggg.

Totalitarianism would be so much easier. 

[LunarOrbit]

I think George W. would agree with you.

to·tal·i·tar·i·an
adj.
Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed.

[SCEtoAUX]

I think George W. would agree with you.

Actually, he already did:

George Bush: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000

http://www.newsgateway.ca/bush_dictator.htm