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Post by rockkid on Jan 24, 2006 9:06:24 GMT -5
drum you're bang on (pardon the bad pun) the "west" has been ignored for years. Turn about is fair play.
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Post by strat-0 on Jan 24, 2006 10:15:55 GMT -5
I understand that the conservative guy wants to put soldiers in the cities of your streets... with guns... I'm not making this up.
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Post by Kensterberg on Jan 24, 2006 10:22:22 GMT -5
I understand that the conservative guy wants to put soldiers in the cities of your streets... with guns... I'm not making this up. LMAO! I heard this on NPR while driving home last night and just about had to pull over because I was laughing so hard. I guess it is possible to have attack ads that go "too far" ... (Of course, I thought the Republican ad with the wolves that ran right before election day was too far as well, and equally laughable. Maybe our Canadian cousins are a bit more sophisticated than us 'south of the border' types).
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Post by tuneschick on Jan 24, 2006 10:37:32 GMT -5
The coverage on CBC last night was priceless. Can I just say once again how much I loooooove Rick Mercer? And their spoof ads had me crying.
Stephen Harper has a dragon. He keeps it in a shed.
Seriously.
Stephen Harper drinks his own blood. We saw him. We're not allowed to make this up.
The Liberal Party. Let's see how badly we can lose this thing
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Post by tuneschick on Jan 24, 2006 10:43:07 GMT -5
That being said - I'll just say that I'm not at all surprised by the results, but I'm not at all happy with them either.
Oooh, oooh, but they're going to lower the GST! Yeah, that's a fucking priority. What program cuts will you have to make to fulfill that promise?
As Riley said, thank god they only have a minority.
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Post by riley on Jan 24, 2006 10:51:49 GMT -5
I also never said only Liberals can be corrupt riley give me some fucking credit will you. I said lets hope it finally changes hence By the way did you actually vote, just curious. Ms. Rock. Let me back up a bit and clarify that my initial scrambled blast wasn't directed at you specifically, although probably prompted by your post, it was misdirected somewhat, so I will apologize. I'm a bit frustrated this morning with this whole thing, but it's wearing off and cooler heads are prevailing and meoldramatics are about done. Focus on what you can control right? Your response was fair, but I still think there's a certain large portion of misguided voters brandishing the whole "this'll teach those Liberals" weapon, even if that's not your own particular motivation. None the less, that's the perogative of the voting populace, and at least if we're getting a taste of what these guys are truly all about it's with some control in place. No woe here by the way (just some moaning and graoning). If the country's message to the Liberals was that they wanted change, I think Atlantic Canada delivered just as poignant a message to the Conservatives. You can't just take shots at a region's character when it suits you and then recant and snuggle in when you might get a majority. I'm proud that Atlantic voted the way we did, for whatever people's reasons were, I just really wish Alexis MacDonald from the NDP had handed Peter MacKay's ass to him. That would have been classic. Yes I did vote btw So here's a couple questions. How long until we go back to the polls? and who are the lead condidates to run for the LIberal leadership?
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Post by tuneschick on Jan 24, 2006 11:04:50 GMT -5
I think Michael Ignatieff and Belinda Stronach are pretty sure bets to throw their hats in the ring, but not sure who else will...
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Post by Dr. Drum on Jan 24, 2006 11:22:41 GMT -5
The coverage on CBC last night was priceless. Can I just say once again how much I loooooove Rick Mercer? And their spoof ads had me crying. Stephen Harper has a dragon. He keeps it in a shed. Seriously. Stephen Harper drinks his own blood. We saw him. We're not allowed to make this up. The Liberal Party. Let's see how badly we can lose this thing Worked the polls, so I didn’t get to see Rick last night but thanks for reminding me of that one, tunes. Almost pissed myself when they ran it on the show last week. Available here, BTW (click on "A Message from the Liberal Party of Canada" near the bottom of the page.) Really want to see Alexis MacDonald win an election one of these days. Liberal Party leader – Ignatieff will run. There’s upwards of eight or ten others who’ll give it serious consideration. Party tradition would sort of dictate a someone whose mother-tongue is French for the next leader but if I was betting, I’d probably put my money on Frank McKenna winning right now.
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Post by rockkid on Jan 24, 2006 21:57:28 GMT -5
Doggy dog no it certainly wasn’t my reason for voting as I did. I have so many. The decades long desecration of our forces both morally & financially being but one. That said, while I understand your disillusionment at the thought of that being someone’s sole reason let me ask this. Should misappropriation (& that’s what it was folks) by any party go unpunished? Can’t have it both ways. I think the Harper government has a huge task ahead in as far as pleasing the Canadian public. They have to know how tenuous it is. With many folk holding the same view as yourself well lets be honest here, one misstep & it will be a short & singular term.
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Post by rockkid on Jan 24, 2006 22:00:11 GMT -5
An aside for our American friends. Funniest thing about those ads………… we’ve had bases in cities since before I was born! Shocking eh. Oh me oh my to do. I'm on one right now! I'm not making that up! GASP
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Post by Dr. Drum on Jan 25, 2006 8:44:14 GMT -5
I figure this parliament is good for two years or less – the average for a minority. Should be quite an interesting one. The media seems to be making the assumption that things will carry on in much the same way as the last time, except for the obvious rightward tilt and the two "main" parties switching roles. Not sure that’s necessarily the case.
The Bloc, for one, having lost seats and popular vote to the Cons will be more demanding, though maybe not to the point of bringing it all down too quickly. The Liberals will be going through another leadership campaign and putting their house in order. They’re also carrying a lot of debt and have been the least effective of all the parties in raising money under the new rules. They’ll be the party who least wants an election in the short term.
It’s assumed the NDP will reprise its role from the last House of Commons as honest broker and support for the government. There are a few areas, like government accountability, where there is common ground, so perhaps. Seems just as likely, though, with a right-wing government and the Liberals on the mend, that somewhere down the road Jack Layton could find himself cast in the role of de facto leader of the opposition.
Politics – Layton is likely to continue the campaign tack of explicitly trying to poach Liberal support – and the composition of the House would seem to support this kind of scenario. This is because it appears that for every bill Harper brings before parliament, he will need the support of either the Liberals or the Bloc. The independent MP from Quebec will be a wild card here, but take the Speaker out and the NDP’s 29 seats alone would always leave the government one vote short of passage.
Of course, once the government secures Bloc or Liberal support for a bill, they can pass it without the NDP. There’s lots of ifs, ands & buts here – it won’t be politically viable for the government to rely on the Bloc too much – but that does seem to set up a situation where there’s not going to be much in it for the Cons to be chasing after Jack Layton’s support a lot of the time.
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Post by chrisfan on Jan 25, 2006 9:56:04 GMT -5
Question from a stupid American here ... I understand the technical definition of a no confidence vote. But in practice, how is it used? Is it likely that it will be used sometime in the near future in Canada?
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Post by Dr. Drum on Jan 25, 2006 11:23:32 GMT -5
Once Parliament reconvenes the opposition will have two early chances to defeat the government on a motion of no-confidence, Chrisfan. The first opportunity will be the Speech from the Throne, which is where the government will lay out its legislative agenda for the upcoming session of Parliament. The second will be when it tables a budget. Beyond those, for all practical purposes, it would take the defeat of a major piece of legislation to topple the government. Technically, however, it is possible to attach a no-confidence designation to any bill or motion put before the House. I’d be surprised if either the throne speech or the budget bill led to the fall of the government – unless they decide to ram something especially contentious through early on, which they won’t. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see one or the other result in a no-confidence motion, though. The Conservatives triggered a brief crisis over the Liberal’s throne speech in February 2004 with a motion of no-confidence, which eventually led to it being amended. Apparently this was the first time this has happened anywhere in the British Commonwealth.
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Post by chrisfan on Jan 25, 2006 11:30:52 GMT -5
So is the motion of no-confidence a tool that avoids some of the political chaos that I envision that it could? Is there some restraint in using it in a "If you do it to my party, we'll come back and get revenge some day" kind of way?
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Post by Dr. Drum on Jan 25, 2006 11:44:14 GMT -5
Not sure what you mean by avoiding political chaos but I don't think an opposition party contemplating a no-confidence motion would ever be worried that the other guys might do the same to them some day.
In a minority parliament, eventually the government is going to fall over something or other. The trick for the governing party is controlling when that happens. Minority governments will sometimes engineer their own defeat, making sure, of course, to fall at time when they're heading up in the polls.
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