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| Great White North | |
| Liberals Try to Topple Canadian Government | |
| 2009-09-02 | |
“Mr. Harper, your time is up,” Mr. Ignatieff told a cheering crowd of Liberal politicians at a party retreat in Sudbury, Ontario. “We will hold Stephen Harper to account and we will oppose his government in Parliament.” The Conservatives do not control a majority of the votes in the House of Commons and rely on the support of the Liberals and two smaller opposition parties to maintain power. Some combination of members from the two smaller parties, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois, would have to join the Liberals in order to bring down the government. Bob Rae, a prominent Liberal member of Parliament, said his party would introduce a motion of no confidence in the government at the first opportunity in the Parliamentary calendar, probably in early October. Exactly how either of the smaller parties, which are to the left of both the Conservatives and the Liberals, will respond when that happens is unclear. Last week, however, Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democrats, said that his party “would be the least likely of the political parties to support the Conservatives.” Since 2006, Mr. Harper has maintained two governments without a majority of Parliamentary votes partly because the opposition parties were concerned that Canadians were weary of federal elections. There have been three since June 2004. Mr. Harper and other Conservatives were quick to say Tuesday that Canadians were not longing for another vote this fall. The prime minister also suggested that the end of his government would harm the economy. “Political uncertainty does not serve the country right now,” Mr. Harper said in Calgary, Alberta, the city which includes his Parliamentary district. In his speech, Mr. Ignatieff, a former journalist who also headed a human rights institute at Harvard University, criticized Mr. Harper for eroding public health care “at a time when Americans want a public health care system,” for lowering the country’s international profile and for replacing a large federal budget surplus with a deficit. This is the second time since the October 2008 election that Mr. Harper’s government has been in peril. In December, Mr. Harper asked Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who represents Queen Elizabeth II as the nation’s head of state, to shut down Parliament so that his government could avoid a no confidence vote. Stéphane Dion, the Liberal leader at the time, had formed a coalition with the other two opposition parties to replace the Conservatives in power. While the episode eroded Mr. Harper’s reputation as a shrewd political strategist, it ultimately proved worse for Mr. Dion who had already announced his resignation as Liberal leader. The party’s executive accelerated the replacement process with the unusual step of naming Mr. Ignatieff as leader in December without holding a party convention. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Continue to offset, actually. Y'all did pretty well last October. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-09-02 23:06 |
| #2 The Liberals should be careful what they pray for then, Canuckistan sniper? Good. Perhaps you-all can offset what the American electorate did last fall. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-09-02 23:03 |
| #1 The Liberal party is split on this with one half just plain wanting to do ANYTHING to get back in power and the other half reading the polls and not wanting an election because they know they'll lose. Most people I hear yakking about this in stores and shops don't want another election so soon after the last one in October of last year. The current minority government is doing okay and a lot of people are cool with that. SO . . . . . if the Libs force another election this fall they just might cause Canada to elect a majority Conservative government. and the Liberals might just be searching for yet another new leader. |
| Posted by: Canuckistan sniper 2009-09-02 13:04 |