|
What makes things particularly fraught is that the Conservatives are actually composed of two parties that recently joined together -- the Progressive Conservatives and the Reform-Alliance (I kind of lost track of their most recent name change, so apologies for the vagueness there).
Anyway, Peter MacKay was in charge of the Progressive Conservatives when this happened -- and some of his people had misgivings (because the Reform Party is more right-wing). It's a bit like the traditional Rockefeller Republicans and the Bible-thumping neo-cons. MacKay had also been a contender for the leadership of the new "unite the right" Conservatives, but Stephen Harper won instead because the Reform Party had more people.
Political commentators like Rick Mercer (sort of like Canada's equivalent of Jon Stewart) speculated a lot when Peter MacKay and Belinda Stronach started dating! Though someone pointed out that it made more sense than her picking one of the Reformers, since she is more liberally-inclined than they tend to be. For example, she supports same-sex marriage, and most of that wing of the party are set against it. I admit that when she appeared on Mercer's show, she appeared to be a good sport, and didn't come across as defensive or mean-spirited -- so I started to like her. (I've been helping with New Democratic Party campaigns, quite the other end of the political spectrum from the Conservatives, so her party's policies had nothing to do with it ...)
Anyway, in last year's election, Paul Martin's Liberals won a plurality but not a majority of the seats in the House. This made them vulnerable to a confidence vote. If they had a majority government (as the previous Liberal Prime Minister did), a non-confidence motion would not have been a problem -- but when the Bloc Quebecois (the separatists) and the Conservatives teamed up, it looked like the Liberals might lose.
I don't know if there is an equivalent mechanism in the US, but if a government loses a non-confidence motion, it's game over, as Railroader describes. (Canada's federal government doesn't have regularly-scheduled elections, like in the States -- they could come at any time the government wants within its 5-year mandate, or when a crisis like this occurs.) They would have called a "snap election", likely for late June. (Politicians have learned that Canadians get cranky if they make us vote during summer vacation, so after Canada Day on July 1st was out.)
Both the Liberals and the Conservatives had lost elected members who'd had fallings-out and decided to sit as independents (like your Senator Jeffords a few years back). The numbers were getting so close that people were looking at whether these people would side with their old parties or not. There was even speculation over people who might be too sick to make it back to Ottawa in time for the vote. (Things got quite nasty last week when Harper accused the PM of taking advantage of this ... luckily one of the NDP people suggested "vote pairing", where someone from the opposite party would not vote, to compensate for the absence of the sick person.)
And things went totally wild when Belinda Stronach changed parties. (I suppose that she could have become an Independent, but this was a pretty strong signal to Harper.) MacKay insists he didn't know in advance and was totally surprised, but who knows? He's been dragging around looking all grim and haggard this week. Some people are saying that he shouldn't have made that merger with the Reform Party in the first place, and that it serves him right.
The NDP sided with the Liberals (who'd agreed to modify the budget in return for their support). The vote came down to 152-152, after Chuck Cadman voted with the Liberals. To my knowledge this is the first time in Canadian history that the Speaker has cast the tie-breaker in a non-confidence motion. (The Speaker is always chosen from the ruling party ... and even if he hadn't been a Liberal, I believe that British parliamentary tradition is that the government would be supported.)
Keep in mind that this is Canada, where things are generally quite boring. (There was an incident a few years back, when a British Columbia politician was secretly having an affair with a colleague, and as a result of the fuss they both ended up leaving their party and starting a new one ... but the rest of the country just said, "Typical of BC.")
At the very least, the Thursday vote has given us plenty of things to discuss over picnics and BBQs this holiday weekend, e.g.:
1) Do we really want another election now? (BC just had a provincial one on Tuesday, but even in the rest of the country feelings are mixed.)
2) Did Belinda really decide she was a Liberal at heart, or was she hoping for personal gain? (In her situation one can't imagine she would be wanting for funds, but she did get a cabinet post.)
3) Was this precipitated by a big fight with Peter?
4) Is it possible that the two of them cooked this up, to make Harper look bad so that MacKay could have another shot at the leadership? (This one contributed by my friend's landlady.)
5) Chuck Cadman claimed that he made his decision based on a 600-person opinion poll of his consitutents. Was the poll accurate? (This one from my officemate, the statistics teacher.)
6) Some of the Conservatives and even the media have been criticizing Belinda Stronach all week -- are they being sexist to throw around words like "whoring" and "blonde bombshell"? (This one from my other officemate, the women's studies graduate.)
--what really breaks me up is that the Globe and Mail reported that she had dinner with MacKay, then a few hours later went to the Prime Minister's place and had another dinner -- I thought it was pretty funny that they made such a big deal over the menus, as if they were shocked that she would have two meals. They don't know how much (if anything) she ate, so why are they going on about it?
etc., etc.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
