Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic The Canadian Election

I don't really have anything to say about it. Just felt a little left out that no one is talking about it

Well, that's what happens when you are not the big mighty country in the world, just neighbours with the big mighty country in the world!

So tell me, ML. When is the election? Has it already happened? If so, who won? And if there is a winner, what changes do you foresee in Canadian politics?

Just curious!

Ann

I confess I don't know much about the Canadian system of elections. Which party is favored to win on October 14? Is there a chance for one party to win a majority or will there have to be a coalition put together?

Our election is coming up on October 14th and it is currently looking like another minority government. But we Canadians are fickle, so that could still change. Today’s poles indicate that things are tightening up. The latest poles I heard have the following:

Conservatives (our right wing party): 31%
Liberals (our middle of the road party): 27%
NDP (our left wing party): 21%
And the Block and the Green party hovering around 10% each.

Of course, that doesn’t mean anything since we don’t vote directly for our leader. We vote for a local candidate and then the party with the most candidates elected will be asked by the Queen of England (through her representative) to form the government. So even with only 10% of the votes, the Block will probably get more candidates elected than the Green party since the Green party is all across Canada and the Block only runs candidates in Quebec. (Assuming the Green party gets any candidates elected). In fact, I remember at one point that even though the Conservatives got about 20% of the vote, they only had two members elected.

In the past, forty precent of the vote has usually been required to have enough to form a majority government. With minorities, they don’t form coalitions. They just have a heck of a time getting their laws passed.

So who will likely form the next government? It’s looking like it will be the Conservatives. But it looks as if they will have another minority government. Since that is exactly what it was before the Conservatives called the election - and since they called the election because they were mad that they couldn’t get all their bills passed - one has to wonder why we spent all this money having an election. (Now, that is Canadian politics at its finest).

ML

Hi ML! It's great to see other democratic nation's elected officials waste the tax-payer's just the same. Old government calls it quits. Elections. Same deadlocks. Repeat as needed.

Michael, who looks forward to 3-6 months of coalition negations himself, at the end of which they will bicker for 2 years tops and then call for re-elections. :rolleyes:

Well, of course, Stephen Harper (the prime minister and Conservative leader) called the election because he thought it was his chance to have an overall majority. And, for a while, it looked as if that would happen.

But first there was the rapid decline of the automotive industry, which hits Ontario (the most populous province) in particular, and the federal government's being blamed for not doing enough to help. To a degree, that's probably a fair criticism; the provincial government is pumping money into retraining and employment counselling services, but the federal government has pretty much shrugged its shoulders and refused to adjust any national allocations of cash/interprovincial transfers to take into account the fact that Ontario's currently hurting badly. So the Conservatives are getting flak for that.

Second, the global economic crisis is hurting Canada as much as anywhere else, and that in particular is causing Harper's personal poll rating to plummet, and the party's standing overall to decline. Now, it's looking like another coalition government, just like the last federal election only a couple of years ago. Last time, the Bloc Quebecois joined in coalition, but its leader, Gilles Duceppe, has been saying some pretty harsh things about the Conservatives in the campaign. Which is not to say that the Bloc won't go back into coalition if the electoral maths means they could get a majority together, but it might look a little hypocritical

Incidentally, as someone still getting used to the Canadian political scene, I was surprised when, a few weeks ago, I went to the Conservative Party website to see what kind of campaign message they were promoting. Out of five pictures on the front page of the website, four were of the Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion - and they were attack ads, of course. Now, there are three of Harper to two of Dion, but that still seems very odd to me and creates a very negative impression - if I were an undecided voter (and I'm neither undecided nor a voter; I'm not yet eligible to vote in Canada) that would have put me off voting for that party.

It's going to be an interesting day next Tuesday.

Wendy

I was wondering who to vote for till the debate . Elizabeth May ( Greens) surprised me with how well she spoke. I also thought Stephan Dion seemed very genuine and passionate about his ideas . At least he is willing to explain them, unlike Harper woh seems to want to keep everything secret. Even more unusual -- Dion acted like a gentleman, if I can call it that. And I liked that.
So now I'm thinking Liberal.

Thanks for the update! Well, here's to hoping there's a non-controversial election. Recently, ours in America always seem to be controversial in some way.

I suppose there are good things and bad things about paralysis in government with minority governing. If you're Canadian, sound off on what you would like to see happen. It might be fun to start a poll and see what people here want. I'd vote: I'm not Canadian and only want to vote so I can see the results.

Me... I'm keeping track of all the lies. Everytime one of them lies or puts out an advertisement that lies, I keep track. Then, on election day, I'll vote for the one who has told the least number of lies. Right now, that's the Marijuana party. The only thing I've heard them say this election is that they want to legalize marijuana - and I'm pretty sure that on that, they are telling the truth .

ML

Well, the Marijuana PArty is tempting but it's not running candidates in most ridings. Now my favourite, the Rhinoceros Party has disbanded and so....

Honestly, in this election, I don't know who to vote for.

Overall, the Conservatives haven't done too bad a job, and our incumbent MP, who is Conservative is hardworking and has integrity. But the Cons have shortchanged Ontario (my province) so that's problematic.

The Liberals? The leader, Stephane Dion, is very closely associated (see various histories of the Chretien years, eg. Susan Delacourt) with our former PM around whom much corruption swirled (perhaps why he lost the last election) As well, I can't forget the vicious Liberal attack ads of the last election which essentially accused Harper of planning to establish a militrary dictatorship. As well, Dion has made election promises that cost so much money that we'll be once more in deficit.

The Greens? I like their environmental program. Also, heard their new leader, Elizabeth May, speak a couple of years ago when she was head of the Sierra Club in Canada and was really impressed. OF all the party leaders, she comes closest to being charismatic. But the she's been anti-abortion until last year (I can't figure out what her stand is now, although I have read it) . But I'm unclear about what the Party stands beyond the environmental. In the last election, it was fiscally conservative, but now seems very like the NDP.

Okay, the NDP (as I've stated elsewhere I'm a former card-carrying member) But.... so many economic promises - I'm ok with deficit spending in tough times (and that we are in!) but the NDP plans are excessive. As well, I've always been uncomfortable with the Party decision to pull out of NATO.

So... none of the above.

more than you wanted to know, right?

What to do? Maybe, make the call on whomever I figure has the most integrity and ability, regardless of party?

c.

I'm sure you are right about what you say about the parties telling truths and lies, but I guess I wouldn't vote for the Marijuana Party anyway!

But thank you for reminding us of the Canadian election, ML! And thank you, Wendy, Allie and Carol, for explaining a few things about Canadian politics. I'll be sure to listen to the radio on Wednesday next week, because even though Swedish media hasn't breathed a syllable about the Canadian election so far , they will tell us who won when the result is available.

Ann

Oh! Oh! Oh! I used to be a card carrying member of the Rhinoceros Party!!!! But then the Rhinoceros died and... well, no one could throw a party quite like he could so the party fell apart

Actually, believe it or not, the Rhinoceros Party is back! The website proudly proclaims: Join the Party and Bring the Rhino Back from Extinction!



You even have the opportunity to sign up and become founding members, ML and Carol! Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any statement of what the party stands for, other than consideration of renaming the country Big Sexyland or "EH" and if you don't like it your a hosehead!

What's a riding? Is that like a district, an area that a member represents? I've never heard the term before.

First, RL, yes. A riding is like a district for voting purposes.

And, Wendy, thanks for the info. I went to the website, and it directed me to Wikipedia to read about the past history of the party. It says that the basic credo of the party was “a promise to keep none of our promises.” - Now, that to me is an honest political party! It then goes on to state some of their more famous promises:

1. Paving Manitoba to create the world's largest parking lot
2. Repealing the Law of Gravity
3. Providing higher education by building taller schools
4. Instituting English, French and illiteracy as Canada's three official languages
5. Tearing down the Rocky Mountain so that Albertans could see the Pacific sunset
6. Making Montreal the Venice of North America by damming the St. Lawrence River
7. Abolishing the environment because it's too hard to keep clean and it takes up so much space
8. Annexing the United States, which would take its place as the third territory, after the Yukon and the Northwest Territories (Nunavut did not yet exist) in Canada's backyard, in order to eliminate foreign control of Canada's natural resources
9. Ending crime by abolishing all laws
10. Paving the Bay of Fundy to create more parking in the Maritimes
11. Turning Montreal's Saint Catherine Street into the world's longest bowling alley
12. Adopting the British system of driving on the left; this was to be gradually phased in over five years with large trucks and tractors first, then buses, eventually including small cars and bicycles last
13. Selling the Canadian Senate at an antique auction in California
14. Putting the national debt on Visa
15. Declaring war on Belgium because a Belgian cartoon character, Tintin, killed a rhinoceros in one of the cartoons
16. Offering to call off the proposed Belgium-Canada war if Belgium delivered a case of mussels and a case of Belgian beer to Rhinoceros "Hindquarters" in Montrééal (the Belgian Embassy in Ottawa did, in fact, do this)
17. Painting Canada's coastal sea limits in watercolour so that Canadian fish would know where they were at all times
18. Banning guns and butter, since both kill
19. Banning lousy Canadian winters
20. Renaming the country Nantucket
21. Building a bridge spanning the country, from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland.
22. Making the Trans-Canada Highway one way only.
23. Changing Canada's currency to bubble gum, so it could be inflated or deflated at will.
24. Donate a free rhinoceros to every aspiring artist in Canada
25. Counting the 1000 Islands to see if the Americans have stolen any
26. The Rhino Party also declared that, should they somehow actually win an election, they would immediately dissolve and force a second election.

Now... who wouldn't support a platform like that?

For more information, you can look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party_of_Canada

*sigh*... if only the rhino party was still out there. It would definitely make the debates more interesting, and I think it would encourage politicians to clean up their act. How embarrassing would it be to realize that people would rather vote for the rhino party than for you?

This is my first federal election where I am able to vote, so that's exciting for me.

I was pretty disappointed by the Conservatives in the leaders debate. They seemed to offer no concrete plans beyond offering tax cuts. Although extra money is always appreciated, I'm not sure how this can be the solution for every problem in Canada today.

Out of curiosity, I just tried that website - it said my postal code was not a valid one in Canada. lol. And here I thought that's where I was living. Maybe the site is being run by the Rhinos?

(did try a couple of times, just in case of typo issues, btw)

c.

Thanks for the website, Beth. I typed in my postal code and it told me I could vote for any party - that mine was not a swing vote.

Funny. I could have told them that. A snowball has a better chance of remaining in a solid state in the devil's domain than for my riding to elect a Conservative.

Thus, the choice here is always... Liberal or NDP.

ML

Just for no reason at all...when I took English at the university, we were told that 'riding' was a Scandinavian word, except that the original word was something like 'thriding', a third. The Vikings exported this word to England, and the English used it in expressions like 'north thriding' or 'south thriding'. But since 'thriding' wasn't their word, and didn't mean anything to them, they started thinking the word should be 'riding' instead, as in north riding and south riding!

Isn't there a party of useless knowledge that you can vote for in your election?

Ann

Back home in Nova Scotia, I always voted NDP. I didn't like the Conservative candidate, and I didn't want the Liberals to win even though I liked their local candidate. But here, in the middle of nowheres Manitoba (North of 55), I have no idea what the historical voting history is, and I've only received pamphlets at the door from two candidates, so I don't feel truly informed this time around.

But still, I'm off to vote in the morning. My grandmother always tells me, "If you don't vote, you have no right to complain". So I'm being the responsible Canadian Citizen after work tomorrow and voting blind.

Strangely, this will be the first time I've ever tried to vote without being on the local voters list.