Giving Harper what he wants at Bene Diction Blogs On

Giving Harper what he wants

OTTAWA — At the end of this week Prime Minister Stephen Harper will visit Rideau Hall, ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, and hit the campaign trail for a federal election on Oct. 14.

Senior government sources say the prime minister will declare that after having met with all three opposition leaders that he no longer has the confidence of Parliament.

Such a move would mean Harper has ignored his own fixed-election-date law, one he introduced as a key democratic reform soon after taking office in 2006.

But government officials say if the opposition appeared set to bring down the government before the fixed date of October 2009, the prime minister should have the same right.

Pending the approval of Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean, Canada’s 39th Parliament will have been dissolved and party leaders will immediately hit the hustings.

“It will happen between (September) 5th and the 7th,” a senior government source told The Canadian Press.

“There will be an election kickoff between Friday and Sunday.”

Canadian Press

Harper:

“Fixed election dates stop leaders from trying to manipulate the calendar,” he said soon after taking office in 2006. “They level the playing field for all parties. The rules are clear for everybody.

“Unless we’re defeated or prevented from governing, we want to keep moving forward to make this minority parliament work over the next three-a-half years,” Mr. Harper said.

“Hopefully in the next election we can run on our record and we won’t need the manipulation of the electoral calendar.”

The economy is going into a slump, the Conservatives never left election mode, there are by-elections to cancel, investigations to slow down and this is going to cost us a lot of money for another minority government. I’m with Dr. Dawg on this. Bewildered. Does an election make sense to you?

Published 4 months, 1 week ago

5 Responses to “Giving Harper what he wants”

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1 Sherm on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 am

It makes perfect sense - Harper is not a fool.

He has had an agenda all along - to prove he is a leader. Since most Canadians don’t follow politics they seem to think he is doing a great job. As for his leadership- that will be his mantra in the coming days.

The second part of his agenda is to destroy the liberal party. By giving votes to the NDP, Bloc and maybe even Green parties he will split the vote.

Another minority government is what will happen, although he would prefer a majority. However, he has split the country, done a good job in Quebec making sure the liberals don’t get too many seats and while the east coast and Ontario don’t want anything to do with his party he doesn’t care.

I wish Canadians would wake up and smell the coffee. There is no Conservative party. It’s a Reform party modelled after the Republican party and as such, has a very different agenda than the PC party ever could have dreamed of.

You get what you vote for. His lawsuit against the liberal party is full of bluff and bluster, well-paid lawyers slamming experts who call him a dictator. His scandals will drag through the courts for years. He will continue to stall Committees and get rid of any public servant who gets in his way.

He has surrounded himself with cabinet ministers who seems to mess up constantly (with the exception of Emerson - who would have thought). That just strengthens his ‘leadership’ and makes him look better for fixing their messes. They just quiety disappear back into the woodwork of the HOC, agreeing with everything he tells them too.

Dion is a gentleman, a team player. Has Canada become so ugly that such an individual no longer attracts people? Sadly that would appear to be the case. We can’t go back to the days when politicians were respected and politicians respected parliament and their constituents.

I want my Canada back. I am also smart enough to know it’s too late, it’s not going to happen.
2 Hamster on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 10:13 am

Two words. (Not those two… its a family site!)
Proportional Representation.
If we had it, then we would really get the government we voted for, not the government that less than half voted for but happen to be in the right areas to make it count.
3 Torontonian on Sep 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 am

Very often, the Proportional Representation (PR) system–
just like Single Transferable Vote (STV) can result in
minority rule as the norm and not the exception.

Are we ready for near continuous minority government
that needs to broker deals behind closed doors before
the next government partnership can be set in place?

That would place us in the same league as Israel, Italy
and Iran–to name a few.

A so-called leader like Harper cannot work with consensus
and he would have been finished off earlier than now.

Of course the PR and STV systems would have neutralised
the effects of Mike Harris’ government and have stopped
the Frank McKenna absolute majority of the 1980s.

One good side effect of this PR or STV is that the leader
truly has to learn to be a servant. Harper hasn’t learned
that lesson and coming from a Christian heritage he should
have realised the humility and modesty of Jesus are the
ideal to strive to. Instead, he decided to run the show and
now look where we are now.

Funny thing: family values and Christians have a knack
for ruining the very things they’re trying to make better.
Look South and you’ll understand my meaning.
4 Sherm on Sep 4th, 2008 at 6:34 am

“Funny thing: family values and Christians have a knack
for ruining the very things they’re trying to make better.
Look South and you’ll understand my meaning.”

Well said - you cannot legislate morality. Just your mention of Harris’ name gave me the hebee jebeez. Add Harper, Flaherty and Clement and it sends one into a major depression - where is my Prozac????

I know we are called to be light and salt in this world. Somehow though the Charle’s McVety’s with their phony degrees and the Focus on the Family types are just plain scary.

Hamster: Proportional Representation? I’m impressed - you must have taken Political Science. Since I didn’t I am going to work the election - it’s safe and more or less non-partisan. (Safe also because I haven’t a clue how our ‘democracy’ works anymore). Think I’ll keep my vote to myself and stay away from anything remotely resembling a political party.
5 Mark Byron on Sep 4th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

The one way I could see proportional representation happening in Canada is if you get a left-of-center coalition government, where the Liberals need both the NDP and Greens to patch together a majority; I’m assuming in this scenario that the Greens become the NDP of the suburbs and upscale urban areas.

There’s a fairly stable 60% of Anglophone Canada who likes one of the three national parties of the left, but they’re split three ways. A PR system would just about lock them into power baring a sea change in favor of the Conservatives.

However, if you did see a PR system, the Conservatives would likely break in two, with the PC and Reform camps reforming, since there is less reason to co-exist. The PC camp could them start to appeal to moderate Liberals without the Reform wing “baggage” and start to get towards a 50% center-right bloc.

As far as the election goes, I’ve had enough of the Grit’s abstentions and the parliamentary game-playing. Let’s have a new election and see if a working majority comes out of it.

If we come back with the status quo plus or minus a few seats, the Canadian body politic is going to have to get used to a minority government or coalition government setting until either the Conservatives can field a majority or the Anglophone left can field a majority. Thus, the parties will have to grow up and figure out how to do business in a no-majority setting rather than jockeying for the next election.

Either way, we’ll have more clarity than we have now.