Cornwall ON- It’s showtime Canada! The Harper Government was toppled from its perch today but a motion of non-confidence from the Liberal party that was supported by the other members of the opposition.
“A government that breaks the rules and conceals the facts from the Canadian people does not deserve to remain in office,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff
This should be a very interesting election in that most of the leaders will not survive it. If Mr. Harper does not win a majority his chance of retaining power appear slim as the message would be that Canadians do not trust him to govern a majority.
From Keith Beardsley our View From the Hill Columnist:
I just thought it was interesting to see the maneuvering going on on the opposition side to avoid answering the question about will they form a coalition.
The wild cards remain to be seen and the early poll numbers are suggesting the possibility that we could end up right where we are with another Harper minority.
The election campaigns formally should be starting Monday.
What do you think Canada? You can post your comments below.
This will be a very important election. They say almost 50% of Canadians never vote! I hope this will not be true now. Harper has proven to me he is corrupt. They have not even mentioned half of the bills he has passed behind our backs. I hope the Border Security agreement will be part the platform but it will not I am sure. The Conservatives voted against a private bill to protect Ontario farmer’s against Monsanto, The only party who cares about this is the NDP and Green party. Maybe its time we give the little guy’s a chance.
You’re right Diane. This will be a very important election, for sure. This is the first time in the history of the British Commonwealth that a government has fallen for being in contempt of Parliament! How slimy and embarrassing is that? And of course the rabid right has its shorts in a knot at the very thought of a coalition government, which in our parliamentary system, is a perfectly legitimate option. It’s called cooperation, and working with others to get the job done, both concepts that are completely foreign to the Cons.
You know Furtz there were issues with the first Bush government win, but there was no doubts about the choice of the US public over his second win. Now is Canada’s chance to truly make very clear choices. I hope for this country’s future that the right choices are made.
The party that can get the confidence of the house is the one that gets to be the government. If harper gets the most seats he can try to get the confidence of the house. If he fails, then another party gets the chance to try. We have a coalition government in the UK and it seems to be working fairly well. All in all. I hope that Harper and contempt for democracy loses this election. His last talk outside the doors of parliament did not even mention that he was found in contempt, a first in Canada.
Yo Jamie. I guess we won’t know ’till the votes are counted. From what I’ve gather, some of Harper’s base support has slipped because we still have legal abortion and gay marriage and all that anti “Christian” stuff happening after five years of his rule. Some of them will be jumping to the CHP. Also there are intelligent and decent conservatives who are disgusted with the sleazy way the Harper gang has conducted itself. They don’t like the idea of cheating on election expenses, personally trashing people for doing their jobs(Linda Keen, Richard Colvin and others). Some of those folks just might sit this one out. Way too early to tell, but we can only hope and dream. There’s also hope that Liz May and maybe a few other Greens will be elected.
yes admin, Canadians will truly make clear their choice and we’ll have a majority Conservative government in Canada. The “coalition” made a huge error in not basing their non-confidence motion on the budget, but thats the coalition thinking “lets vote to get Harper out of here the quickest way”. Watch things happen now.
No Stan. I think the correct move was made. The budget was a canard. The stink is the stink. 🙂
Yup. And if the opposition parties run good campaigns, that stink will stick to the Cons like sh!t to a blanket.
Has anyone looked up the dfinition of contempt of parliament.
it states in short “The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed… shall not confer any privileges, immunities, or powers exceeding those at the passing of such Act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members thereof”
Does our government have anything to do with the act written for the UK and its colonies under the constitution written in 1867?
@smee. Yup. Canada adopted the British Parliamentary rules way back around 1867, or maybe even earlier. It would take an act of Parliament to change them to the Harper Parliamentary rules. Thankfully the ex-King Harper wasn’t able to pull that off. He’d for sure need a majority to do that.
i dont think stephen harper should be allowed to run for prime minister again he is a con artist who steals money from all of us just to pay his own bills get rid of harper he is nothing but a loser he’s gonna kill our country like barack obama is doing to the united states
King Stephen will do that the next time around.