New Canadian Government

[Julius Seeker]

We got an even tighter minority government than before. The New Democratic Party gained big again:

Conservatives: 125
Liberals: 102
Bloc: 51
NDP: 29
Ind: 1

Last Election saw a minority government:

Liberals: 135
Conservatives: 99
Bloc: 54
NDP: 19
Ind: 1

Things might change around a tiny bit but nothing drastic. My party, the NDP, gained a nice 10 seats. I sincerely hope that they push for proportional representation since they got about 18% of the popular vote, and 29 seats, whereas a party like the Bloc got only 10% of the popular vote and managed 51 seats.

Anyways, big news for the Liberals, Paul Martin's career is finally over, he is stepping down as leader.

How this government will work, I have no idea.

[kali o.]

Wow, had no idea (just left Cairo today, in greece now).

I knew it was a possibility, but hoped against it. The conservative lead is nothing but reactionary anti-liberal votes. Stupid. If the average Canadian bothered to examine the conservative platform, I can't imagine they'd find much to like...

Pandering, flip-floppers if you ask me.

The economic and political state of Canada has flourished under Liberal governement....I can't imagine a sensible reason behind these results.

/shrug

[Julius Seeker]

Oh well, at least with the way things are now Harper really doesn't have much power, he has to convince the opposition to get anything done. As far as I have heard, he was not very hard on the BQ, his campaign on Quebec was "vote conservative because Harper wants Quebec to have a voice in national politics" so it is possible that he would venture to form an alliance with Quebec.

What will happen is that I think he will tread very carefully. For those who read this that aren't Canadian, though the other parties are all left winged, the politics in this country are not so black and white as they are in the US. All of the parties have very differing views on how things should be. One large myth that has been going around is that Harper (Conservative leader) is Pro-Bush, this is actually not true; in fact, Bush got angry at Harper when Harper refused to support the Missile defense system. Harper refused to do this because Martin (Liberal Leader) supported Missile defense. Harper originally supported the idea as well but changed his mind after the Liberals were elected.

On the economic issue, yeah, I don't see what purpose electing Conservatives does for economic growth. The Liberals seem to have a very good idea on how things should be done in terms of economic growth. I don't think the Conservatives can add anything important to the economy. Cutting GST from 7% to 5% is stupid and doesn't help anyone except luxury manufacturers and retailers, essential goods don't have a GST charge as it is. Harper just said he wants to do that to get certain people happy who are ignorant on political issues and exactly what those GST dollars are used for. For example, those GST dollars might be used to aid students in their academic pursuits. GST dollars could be used to subsidize small local businesses. Harper will not be very successful in this field of economics, he plans tax cuts, but he will have NO way of cutting social programs with his minority government.

[Zeus]

The numbers are slightly off. From what I saw this morning, it was:

Conservatives - 124
Liberal - 103
Bloc - 51
NDP - 29
Other - 1

The good thing about this is that the Conservatives and the NDP together cannot make a majority; they'll need either the Bloc or the "Other" to work with them. Or Conservatives and Bloc together, which is really bad, considering the Bloc only vote on what's good for Quebec (and they stand for separatism). So, it's even more of a lame-duck minority than before.

I wouldn't mind seeing this in action where people don't actually spend THE ENTIRE TIME trying for no confidence voting. Maybe we'll actually see some real democracy in action for once. At least we'll have 2 or more parties represented to get something passed rather than just 1.

For all my American mates here, sorry about all this confusion with the greater-than-2 party system, I know it's something that you've never had to deal with and never will

[Julius Seeker]

What I think is ironic is that the wealthier locations generally supported NDP and Liberal, whereas the poorer regions supported Conservatives.

As Kali-stated above, the vote for the Conservatives came as anti-liberal votes. Should they had been more educated in their politics, they would have realized that it is the NDP which would have granted them the greatest benefits, and the Conservatives the least benefits. This is why I believe that democracy is flawed, that elections should be based on an educated elector class instead. I am not against the idea of democratic representation with a role no further than advisement, I heavily disagree with the power that ignorant people have in selecting those who actually run things.

I shouldn't have been able to vote myself based my own judgement on who should and shouldn't be voting class, but I could and I did. The reason I say this is because I didn't pay much attention to the updated issues and rather just cast my vote the same as I did last time.

[Oracle]

Go Conservatives @$^*$^()$%*$&#^#@!%@!~#$^&

[Nev]

For all my American mates here, sorry about all this confusion with the greater-than-2 party system, I know it's something that you've never had to deal with and never will

Yes...unfortunately.

I did hear about this, and it does sadden me to hear about more conservatives gaining power, but I don't really know enough about it.

I have a problem with conservativism as a political philosophy in general, actually. The root of any conservative philosophy - reflected in our word for it in English - is to "conserve" something, and that something is usually some part of the status quo. This is fine and great, except for one thing: change is absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, the only constant thing in this existence of ours. Any living, breathing philosophy - political or otherwise - is going to have to be capable of change in order to effectively meet the demands of a changing existence, and any philosophy that opposes change, at least to me, fails to effectively note the basic fact that our world, our universe, and even our selves *do* change over time.

So, I can't say I took the news particularly well. However, history seems to intersperse periods of political conservativism (for example, in the U.S., 1890-1910, 1940-1960) with periods of raging liberalism (again, in the U.S., 1910-1930, and 1960-1980), so my solid guess is that the pendulum will swing back around eventually. Seeing as how I tend to be far more at home in a social climate of raging liberalism, hopefully I won't have to hold my breath too long...

[Julius Seeker]

Right now he doesn't have the power, the Bloc and the Liberals have the power since the Conservative party needs the approval of one of these parties to pass anything.

[Julius Seeker]

Oh yeah, and I wouldn't compare the Conservative Party of Canada to the Republicans. The Conservatives are not really true Conservatives, they are about 20% Conservative and 80% "Old Liberal". When I refer to "Old Liberal" I am speaking of the Liberal party that dominated the British nation before the year 1900.

[Blotus]

Even if this were true, 19th century "liberals" would be considered nothing of the sort today.