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Showing posts with label coalition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coalition. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Lot's of faux indignation amongst media and bloggers and politicians over Harper's decistion to appoint three senators, including two who ran for election to the House of Commons, and lost. To judge from the response by some, you would think that Harper had broken at least a handful of laws, and done something totally immoral and unprecedented.
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| Parliament |
The Cat advises people to take a deep breath and think a bit before they do the Layton-kneejerk.
Tories make sense:
The Tory explanation makes sense:
LIKE IT? CLICK HERE TO READ MOREMarjory LeBreton, the government's leader in the Senate,
Saturday, 14 May 2011
If Michael Ignatieff had not allowed himself to be spooked by Harper's fearmongering in early 2008, we would have had a chance to implement the Coalition Agreement between the NDP and the Liberal Party, and for the next 18 months a progressive government would have initiated the stimulus program (without wasting as much taxpayer's money as the Tory trinket scheme did), and with a good shot at a further extension of 18 months by agreement of the parties.
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Sunday, 1 May 2011
Perhaps the most significant statistics produced in the whole campaign by a pollster is today's May 1 forecast of voters' intentions published by EKOS.
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With the failure of the 2008 Coalition Agreement between the Liberal and NDP parties (beaten to death by Tory skillful spinning, that spooked Micheal Ignatieff to recoil from the deal), it seemed for a long time that any realignment of the parties to
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Thursday, 21 April 2011
Does Stephen Harper meet the test to be prime minister of our democracy?
0 comments Posted by 2011 at 05:25If you wish to immigrate to Canada you are presented with a Study Guide – Discover Canada The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. This teaches you how our constitution works. Included in the Study Guide are these statements:
LIKE IT? CLICK HERE TO READ MOREIn Canada’s parliamentary democracy, the people elect members to the House of Commons in Ottawa and to the provincial and territorial legislatures. These representatives are responsible for passing laws, approving and monitoring expenditures, and keeping the government accountable. Cabinet ministers are responsible to the elected representatives, which means they must retain the “confidence of the House” and have to
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
In the past day or so Michael Ignatieff explained how he, as leader of the Liberal Party, would obey the laws governing our Parliament if Harper won a minority but did not win the confidence of the House. Harper then leaped into the fray to repeat the outright lies and distortions regarding our constititutional laws that he has repeated for years.
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| Kady O'Malley |
The right wing press has faithfully repreated the Harper lies and distortions, offering them to the Canadian voters are accurate reflections of how our Parliament works.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Our pollsters often ask dumb questions, get confused answers, and publish the answers as if they have found out what Canadians think about what does or should happen if we have a minority government.
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| Balanced polling? |
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Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau chief of The Star knows where the Coalition Monkey now lives:
LIKE IT? CLICK HERE TO READ MOREYet it seems Harper has his own coalition monkey on his back. The more he rails against a coalition in this election, the more he gets asked about
Monday, 28 March 2011
Quick: Somebody ask Senator Mike Duffy if there WAS a Plot in 2004!
0 comments Posted by 2011 at 19:19Another person who can throw some light on the issue of whether the Prime Minister of Canada is lying to Canadians or whether Giles Duceppe and Jack Layton are not levelling with us, is a journalist who went on air at the time with hints that "some Conservatives" saw a chance for Harper's Conservatives to slide into power despite the Liberals having won the most seats of the 4 parties in 2004 (my highlighting and underlining):
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Mike Duffy - Shoehorn Harper into Power On the day in October 2004 when Martin's government delivered its throne speech, CTV journalist Mike Duffy — later appointed by Harper as a Conservative senator — reported that some Conservatives saw the Liberals' troubles as a chance to make Harper prime minister.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Layton on the Harper Three Amigos Coalition Plans & why he walked
0 comments Posted by 2011 at 17:10 |
| Rosemary Barton of the CBC |
This blog by Rosemary Barton with its exerpt from leader Jack Layton's 2005 political memoir, Speaking Out Louder: Ideas that work for Canadians (Key Porter Books), in which he recalled the 2004 meetings, IS A MUST-READ BY ALL because of its details of the Harper Plot, Harper's willingness to work in a coalition with the separatist Bloc just to become prime minister, and Layton's reason for parting company with the other two of the Three Amigos:
LIKE IT? CLICK HERE TO READ MOREMr. Duceppe and the Bloc would have been key players in any Harper coalition, demanding significant dismantling of our collective capacities as Canadians as the price for his support. That dismantling was
Stephen Harper has screwed up big time on the coalition issue, by failing to anticipate that the Liberal Party would come out with a speedy response to Harper's fear mongering on the issue of a coalition between the Liberals, NDP and Bloc.
Ignatieff snookers Harper for second time:
Just as the reinvigorated Liberals snookered Harper over the vote on the Budget, which was Harper's choice, by forcing a vote on the Contempt of Parliament issue
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It seems that Harper did indeed discuss a coalition with the Bloc in 2004, according to a Tweet by Duceppe, but the three men who met in the hotel to talk about the Conservatives lead by now lame duck prime minister Harper on other occasions have said there was no talk of a coalition as such.
Coyne writes that:
LIKE IT? CLICK HERE TO READ MOREBut what of the Conservatives? Weren’t they proposing a coalition themselves, via that notorious 2004 letter to the Governor General? No.While it’s abundantly clear that Harper was ready to replace Paul Martin as prime minister under exactly the circumstances he now denounces — making him not just wrong but hypocritical — it is equally clear he was not proposing to form a coalition.
Monday, 28 February 2011
In an earlier post I referred to a recent poll which showed that more than two-thirds of Liberals and members of the NDP supported a coalition government made up of these two parties.
Instead of listening to this feedback from their members, both Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff seem determined to continue with business as usual (a course which will most likely result in yet another minority Harper government, with a mandate to continue his right wing rule for another 5 years).
In Egypt, and in several countries across northern Africa and the Middle East, ordinary citizens are rising up to protest against leaders who are not listening to them, and who are not implementing reforms – including political reforms.LIKE IT? CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
Thursday, 24 February 2011
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| Move along, Harper: Let the People's Government take over ... |
Conservative ministers are fanning across the country at the public expense to announce new spending commitments, just in case their March budget fails to gain the confidence of the House and they find themselves facing a new election.
One of the purposes of the ministers boondoggle travels is to practice the Harper Tory spin that the Conservatives under Harper are the best people to manage our economy.
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Monday, 21 February 2011
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| Decision time for the leaders |
The latest Nanos poll confirms other recent polls and show the Tories clawing back support in the Prairies and west, with slight gains for the NDP. When 308 applied the Nanos poll to its projections, it ended up with a minority Tory government (increased to 147 seats from the current 143), with the three opposition parties still holding the majority of the seats in Parliament.
What this means is that if an election is triggered during a vote of no-confidence of the March Harper budget, the Governor General after the election with these results would call on Harper to try yet again to gain confidence with another budget, and if this did not happen because the three opposition parties held firm to their decision to oust the Tories and replace them, the GG would refuse a Harper request to either prorogue Parliament or to call another election so soon after one was held.
Instead, the GG would call upon Michael Ignatieff to attempt to form a government – as leader of the party with the next highest number of seats – which could gain the confidence of the House. If the NDP and Bloc vote confidence in the new minority Liberal government, the Tories would be unable to block this vote with their minority of seats, and Ignatieff would then form a new government.
The key to this change of government happening lies in all 3 opposition parties voting against the Harper March budget and the one after the ensuing election. If any one supports Harper, he continues as prime minister.
It is important to note that 380 forecasts 28 seats for the NDP, a loss of 6 seats from their current 34.
The tradeoff Jack Layton has to make is that between principle (should he support Harper's new budget -with the Tories determined to continue with a $6 billion corporate tax reduction but prepared to partially support one or two of Layton's table wish lists - or should he be consistent with his and his party's past statements and require the $6 billion to be re-directed to other uses (no cash for corporations but cash for kids, for example).
Layton also has to consider that he will lose 6 seats.
The gains for Layton are substantial and consist of retention of his political integrity, consistency of principle, the retention of his leadership of the NDP (which will be badly threatened if he caves to Harper as Harper's cheap date for 2011 budget prom), and the ability of the NDP to play a major role in the programs to be implemented by a more progressive Liberal minority government over the next 4 years.
Boiled down to the nitty gritty, does keeping jobs for 6 NDP MPs weigh more than replacing the reactionary Harper government and boosting jobs for hundreds of thousands of Canadians over the next 4 years?
This is a decision Jack Layton will be making in the next few days.
Statesman or vote-for-hire hack.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Michael Ignatieff is out of step with Liberal voters on coalition
0 comments Posted by 2011 at 16:06
Now that Gilles Duceppe has initiated a belated public dialogue on the very real prospects of a coalition government after the next election – a Liberal-NDP government – let's look at the latest poll by EKOS on the subject (January 27 2011).
That poll clearly shows that Ignatieff's is turning his back on two-thirds of Liberal voters
when it comes to a coalition government:
How can a leader claim to be leading on such a vital issue when the huge majority of potential Liberal voters would prefer an outcome which is the direct opposite of the one he has said he prefers?
Perhaps it is time for Ignatieff and his advisors to speak to members of the Liberal Party?
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| Gilles Duceppe |
... for openly discussing the realities of Canadian politics:
As reported in Quebec’s French-language daily La Presse, the Bloc Quebecois has returned speculation about a future anti-Conservative coalition to the forefront of political discussion. The party has declared that it retains the right to support a coalition of parties in the event of another minority government. While no parties were named, based on current polling trends, that could only mean supporting the Liberals and the NDP to block the Conservatives from forming another government.
And the initial Liberal response is yet another pathetic bout of whistling past the graveyard:
On the other front, by musing openly about supporting a coalition with the Liberals, Duceppe has put the Liberals back on the defensive, with Montreal MP Marc Garneau quickly denying that the Liberals have any plan to form a coalition with another party.
What the Liberal party should have said in answer to the Bloc move to recognize reality, was to welcome Duceppe's statement, and state that the Liberal Party was prepared to form the next government of Canada should a Tory minority government lose a vote of confidence.
However, to the extent the Liberals would need support from other MPs in the House, such support would be welcomed provided that the Liberals were not prepared to take any steps to endanger the unity of Canada, nor to embark upon irresponsible economic steps which would hurt Canadians rather than help them.
And Michael Ignatieff could spell out a set of general principles which would govern a minority Liberal government (keep it short, keep it simple, keep it effective).
And we could then all sit back and watch the new Tories scramble around like headless chickens.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
The latest Ipsos Reid poll shows the Harper new Tories increasing their lead over the Liberals, with volatility in Ontario making the difference.
In the industrial heartland of Canada the Tories received 42% from those polled.
But this is the key message that Michael Ignatieff should be thinking very, very hard about:
According to the latest Ipsos Reid poll, the Tories stand at 42% in Ontario (up six points), compared to 32% for the Liberals (down eight points), 15% for the NDP (unchanged), and 11% for the Green party (up three points).
Put down your quill pen, Michael, and turn to your abacus and do the math.
Ponder on this: 58% of Ontario voters prefer some party or parties other than Stephen Harper's right wing Conservative Party.
Now do the right thing.
Monday, 31 January 2011
The NDP Dilemma: Is it time for Layton to step aside for Mulcair?
0 comments Posted by 2011 at 13:43Jack Layton has done a pretty good job as leader of the protest group pretending to be a party that goes by the name of the NDP.
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| 1867 Fathers of Confederation |
Building on his experience as a member and acting deputy mayor of our biggest and most representative city, Toronto, he took over the leadership of the NDP 2003, and became an MP in 2004. Since then the party under his leadership has increased its share of the popular vote in elections (almost doubling it in 2004), and holding the balance of power when the prince in waiting and then hapless prime minister Paul Martin took over the Liberal Party.
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Friday, 28 January 2011
The latest EKOS poll has two questions on an alternative government to the Tory government.
The results of the first question are:
I find the 50% support for a Liberal-NDP government lead by Ignatieff amongst the BQ to be very interesting. The 47% support amongst Green Party members is surprisingly low.
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