Canadian Politics: All's fair in Love , War, and Separation

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Canadian Politics: All's fair in Love , War, and Separation

Beneath the snow , ice and prim and proper demeanour, the heart of Canadian politics has all the elements of intrigue, betrayal and heartbreak.

To give you a brief update, in June 2004 a national election was held. The Liberal Party won a minority government-where they hold the most seats in the house but not enough to hold a majority.

The second largest group were the Conservatives, third largest was the Bloc Quebecois-a party who's purpose of existence is to seperate the province of Quebec from Canada.

The fourth largest group is the NDP-the New Democrat Party-which has a largely tax and spend socialist agenda.

The result of this setup is that alliances have been made in the parliment with the Liberals/NDP , and the Conservatives with the Bloc Quebecois.

We have a vote for the 2005 budget tommorrow, if the budget fails to pass, then the Conservative/Bloc Quebecois may force a non-confidence vote and bring on another national election.

Currently the Liberal/NDP alliance is 3 votes short of the full Majority and so is the Conservative/BQ.

The balance of power is resting with 3 independant members of Parliment.

One interesting development over the last 48 hours, is the defection of a senior member of the Conservative party-Belinda Stronach to the Liberal Party.

Not only has she defected but she has been granted a senior cabinet position with Liberals-Minister of Human Resources/Development.

This is a serious blow to the Conservatives... Now the Liberals just need to find another 2 votes.

Not only this but Belinda was dating Peter MacKay-another senior member of the Conservative Party-yesterday when she announced her defection-she dumped him too!

Details on her defection are here:http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1& c=Article& cid=1116367811321& call_pageid=968332188492& col=968793972154& t=TS_Home

More details on her defection and breakup are:http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1& call_pageid=971358637177& c=Article& cid=1116367811316

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Zen: totally agree with your view on the bloc. Regarding your question about the Conservatives. Well I'd say the old Progressive Conservative party was more liberal than the US Democrats. :) . The new Conservative party is a wannabe US Republican party. Only problem is that it probably won't be as successful in Canada due to our different demographics... We don't have a large bible belt, and a large core population of Mid-west farmers/small town folk. Our population is disproportionatly much more Urban compared to the amount of land mass we have. And Ontario which is staunchly Liberal or with NDP tendencies due to it's high Immigrant population.
Atlantic Canada is more Red Tory leaning due to their dependance on social welfare. So that really just leaves Western Canada... but they simply don't have the population to counter the Ontario vote in an Election. Fact is if hte Bloc wasn't in Quebec, there would be zero hope for the conservatives, because Quebecors are essentially more liberal leaning... they are just caught up in this seperation nonsense.

Would anyone want to answer the following questions?

Another question: Why are the BC Liberals callled Liberals when I hear that they are actually cener right. In BC Provincial elections there are only two major parties, BC Liberals and BC NDP. At federal level they have the Liberals, the Conservatives and NDP. In the provincial elections BC Liberals got 46 seats and BC NDP got 33 seats (In 2001, it was BCL's 77 to BCNDP's 2) . At federal level, Liberals got 8 seats, Conservatives got 22 seats and NDP got 5. So how do federal liberals and federal conservatives vote. Also how was BC Liberal Party reduced from 77 to 46 in 4 years?

A question: Are the Canadian Conservatives, in any way, equivalent as the GOP (which I perceive as war mogers, racists, evangelits, anti-immigration etc). One think that I found different was that Canadian Conservatives have a good proportion of minorities (Asians etc.) in them.

Stronach and Cadman saved the government. Indeed politics makes strange bedfellows. The conservatives ganged up with the Bloc to oust liberals, which might backfire. Bloc, whose sole agenda is to gain a separete Quebec state, doesnt go well with the rest of the Canadians, outside Quebec.

i dont know anything about canadian politics but as a general rule i'm always pretty wary of nationalists - from any country. so yay liberals!!

Liberals won the non-confidence vote by 1 vote... yay!

Baba: Bloc has held referendums on seperating Quebec from Canada in the past. I'm not stereotyping.

You are stereotyping the bloc Ertw.

Politics make for strange bedfellows.. If the conservatives needed her again later, they'd take her back in a heartbeat.... Latest update in the confidence vote saga to begin today at 5:45pmEST... Carolyn Parrish one of the 3 independant MPs, (who is expected to vote for the government/Liberals) is suffering from excrutiating pain due to either an ovary or kidney cyst-so there was concern she wouldn't be able to make it to the vote today... She said she'll come and vote crawling on her hands and knees if she has to... Quoting directly from the article ""You can quote me on this, she's going to make the vote if she has to crawl," spokesman Brian MacDonald told globeandmail.com, adding that she is in "a hell of a lot of pain" as result of either a ovarian cyst or kidney stones.

Ms. Parrish herself later said: "Come hell or high water, there's no frigging way I'm going to let one ovary bring the government down." "

Never a dull moment here!!

and long held beliefs wilt in the face of ambition. or maybe i'm just cynical and need to cut people more slack? actually, now that i've read the details of their dinner, maybe i'd have done the same. we've got a documentary on monday coming up - a reporter who was undercover during the prime minister's election campaign... should be fun viewing

and no-one likes a traitor. can they ever be trusted? is like trusting a spouse who has cheated but repented...

It could look bad on Belinda if the vote goes in favour of the opposition.

NYTimes on the upcoming budget vote: www.nytimes.com

How Stronach orchestrated the move from the Conservatives to the Liberals... : www.theglobeandmail.com

Indeed shazia, good question... Machiavellian ambition is great-if it gets you what you want... But if you fail, then you've got a lot of burned bridges behind you and no help.

politics is a dirty game. or rather a game of devil-may-care-compromise at all costs. but if you've compromised your ideals so much, what do you when you are nowhere near where you started?

Belinda inherited the leadership of Magna International-a auto parts company with billions in revenue from her father who started it. She's got brains, beauty and now vying for Political power... Brilliant strategic move on her part.

I applaud Belinda Stronach's move as I believe the Conservatives were making a deal with the devil-the bloc quebecois simply to try to force the Liberals out of power. Yet they were willing to risk the breakup of canada in the process...

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Canadian Politics: All's fair in Love , War, and Separation

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