Politics

I’m a little bit disgusted with our government at the moment. The situation as it stands is such:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper won the election only six weeks ago. Now, this week, the three other parties – Bloc Quebecois, Liberal, and NDP - have signed a coalition with the sole intent of removing our elected government from power. They intend to place Stephane Dion in the position of Prime Minister.

This ‘bloodless coup’ is legal. I’m not going to try and say that it’s illegal or undemocratic because, apparently, it is completely legal within our system of government. Try to convince most Canadians that this is legal, though. I think the general feeling is one of “Well, it shouldn’t be!”

For those Americans who are reading this, our system of electing a government in Canada is fairly simple. In each riding, we vote for and elect a Member of Parliament. The political party which wins the most seats is asked by the Governor General to form a government. One of the problems, though, is that we are not a two party system.

The Governor General’s role in Canada is 99% figurehead. She represents Canada in other countries. She also represents the Queen (who is actually our head of state) by ceremoniously asking the winning party to form a government, or by dissolving a government. Every once in a while she actually has to step up and make a decision, like right now.

Now, a winning party can either have a majority government (in which they have more than 50% of the seats and can pass motions without help from the other parties) or they can have a minority government (in which they have less than 50% of the seats and must make deals with the other parties in order to have their motions passed). Canadians have shown over and over again that we like minority governments. They are not so strong that they can just do whatever they want. We’re Canadian, which means we’re polite, NICE people*. We want everyone to get along.

Mr. Stephen Harper, our current Prime Minister, has a minority government. His party won 143 seats. Considering that we have six main parties (plus some oddball little ones), that’s a really nice win.

M. Stephane Dion, the leader of the Liberal party, won 77 seats. (I know, HE didn’t win the seats, his party did.)

Mr. Jack Layton, whose smile always makes me think an elephant is standing on his foot, the leader of the NDP, won 37 seats. For the NDP, that’s pretty good.

Two seats were won by Independents, and the Green Party won nothing. I’m pretty certain I remember them talking about putting more taxes on gas and stuff like that. Most people seem to find the Green party a teeny bit too preachy. Oh, yes, that’s Green as in “Save the environment”.

Now, if we do the math, that’s 116 seats divided up among the Liberals, the NDP and the two Independents, versus 143 seats won by the Conservatives. It seems pretty simple. A majority would be 144 155 (my bad – there 308 in total) seats, so the Canadian people gave Mr. Harper just enough power to be effective if the other parties worked with him a little, but not enough power to get a God-complex. (We don’t like our politicians to get too sure off themselves.)

However, we need to take into account the Bloc Quebecois. I hope I don’t lose American readers here, because this gets very strange.

The Bloc is a party that campaigns only within the province of Quebec. They state openly and clearly that they are devoted to the best interests of Quebec, and only Quebec. They advocate the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. You caught that bit, right? They push something they call “sovereignty” which means they want to be a country of their own.

When driving through Quebec, visitors are astonished to find signs indicating that they are entering the National Capital Region – ie., Quebec City. (In case you’re wondering, the National Capital Region is Ottawa, in Ontario.)  At any rate, this party is a federal party. They take part in the national debates and they have elected Members of Parliament. Their leader is a man named Gilles Duceppe. At the end of our last election, M. Duceppe stated, “without the Bloc Québécois tonight, Mr. Harper would have formed a majority government!” The Bloc won 49 seats, all of which are in the province of Quebec. So, yes, they are a completely provincial party, but they’re a federal party. I’ve been asking people for years to give me an answer to that one and no one can. During a past election, Mr. Harper looked at the leader of the Bloc at the time and said something along the lines of “Will you be quiet? It’s not as if you can actually form a government!”

Right now, the coalition being formed by the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and NDP would have the majority of seats.

Traditionally, a few months after an election, the government tables a budget. The budget for this government is due on January 27. A vote is then taken on whether or not to pass the budget. If the government cannot get the budget passed, then this is considered ‘a vote of non-confidence’ and the government may be dissolved. Does this happen? Not very often. In 2005, for the first time, a government was brought down by a simple vote of non-confidence, and only five have ever been brought down by a vote of non-confidence at all. Multi-party systems where the government is brought down by votes of non-confidence are not considered stable countries. It is more common – and more popular with the citizens of Canada – for the minority government to make agreements with the other parties in order to gain their support.

What scares a lot of people, including, I think, the Prime Minister, is that this coalition gives the Bloc a lot of power. The coalition speaks of their ability to “kickstart the economy”. People are talking about a global economic crisis and these three think that they are qualified to improve Canada’s economy? What I’ve been hearing from people today is simple. We need to bunker down and hang on, and Mr. Harper has been doing a fine job at that. Mr. Harper is an economist, which is exactly what our country needs right now. (M. Dion and Mr. Layton are both Professors of Political Science, Gilles Duceppe is a career politician who did not graduate from university)

The last thing we need is an unstable government, and that is what an unelected government will be. People are already saying things like “Why did I even bother voting?” The coalition speaks about putting Stephane Dion in as Prime Minister until the Liberals can elect a new leader of their party. (Oh – did I mention that the Liberals have given M. Dion the boot?) That new leader could then be the next Prime Minister. What this would mean is that we would have an unelected Prime Minister for probably the next three years, in a coalition which owes the Bloc a lot.

The coalition are saying that Prime Minister Harper must step down from the office of Prime Minister because the others are all siding against him. Interestingly enough, this is not the case. The Governor General can appoint any citizen of Canada of voting age to be the Prime Minister. Like me. I could become Prime Minister, if I could convince the Governor General that I could do the job. It is not even legally necessary for the Prime Minister to have a seat in the government. The Prime Minister must resign ONLY if an opposition party wins a majority of seats in an election. The coalition did not win as a single party.

Marie Beausoleil for Prime Minister!
I am not a politician, and I am aware that I may have made some factual errors in this. If anyone reading this notices a mistake, please let me know and I will correct it.