Category: Canada

PM Harper Closes Canadian Parliament for 7 Weeks

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It’s to prevent a no confidence vote of his minority government, which went completely nuts following the last election, and attempted to defund the opposition parties, pass strike bans, and fight the downturn with Hoovernomics.

The mask slipped, and it was enough to make the various members of the Liberals, NDP, and BQ decide to form a coalition government, and throw him out.

While I do think that the Conservatives might be able to do something in the next 7 weeks to hold onto power, it would involve dumping Steven Harper and finding someone who is not a serious right wing nutjob as party leader.

As it stands right now, the Conservatives are running around screaming, “Coup”, and saying that it would be a disaster for the BQ to be a part of the government, because they want to secede from Canada (OK, they are right on that one, but the Tories are a worse disaster).

There has not been a government change in Canada without an election since 1924, but it is a legal move, and it’s intended for moments like this.

It should be interesting to see whether the Conservatives can peel off some Libs or BQ, or whether some Tories will move away from Harper.

Any Canadians want to handicap this?

Looks Like Our Neighbors to the North Will Boot the Wingnuts Too

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Well, we now have a report from Canada that the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party have agreed to form a coalition, and that the Bloc Québécois has agreed to be a part of the government too.

Because of this they have asked that the current minority Conservative government be dissolved, as they constitute a majority of the Canadian Parliament, as 77 Liberal + 37 NDP + 49 BQ is 164 of the 308 seats.

I’m not sure how long this would last. The Liberal Leader, Stephane Dion, would be the interim PM, but he announced his resignation as party leader following the recent election, so the new leader would replace him. (more on the machinations here)

Of note is the fact that this would be the first time that the NDP would actually be officially a part of a government.

The Conservatives are screaming Coup, but they got neither a majority of the seats nor a majority of the popular vote.

I think that the proximate cause is a recognition by the Conservatives that with Obama in the White House, one of their main claims to legitimacy, being uniquely positioned to maintain a good relationship with the US President, is no longer operative, so they have tried to impliment some of the more radical elements of their agenda in the expectation that they would lose in the next election:

….Transport Minister John Baird said the minority government won’t try to eliminate federal civil servants’ right to strike over the next couple of years, as pledged in last week’s economic update.

On Saturday, Baird also announced the government had shelved its contentious plan to eliminate political party subsidies that are based on the number of votes received during elections. Parliament is due to vote on a Liberal no-confidence motion on Dec. 8.

The subsidies in question are public financing of campaigns.

Also, Harper is refusing to submit a real stimulis package for the Canadian economy.

In the process, I think that he has gotten the 3 other parties freaked out enough to work together.

Canada: More Harper

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Cons.
Lib.
B.Q.
N.D.P.
Other
Total
Leading:
144
75
49
38
2
308
Popular vote (%):
37.4
27.3
9.3
18.2
7.8
100

My condolences to the people of Canada. Even though it is a minority government, I can’t see a coalition government going the other way, when one party captures 143 of the 155 votes needed for a majority.

It doesn’t help that the Libs and the BQ really don’t like each other.

So you will see 4 more years of Western Petro-Neanderthal policies….Hope that he does not completely destroy the NHS.

The meltdown did prevent an absolute majority though, and should make it more difficult for his party to destroy government health care in Canada.

The Upside of the Financial Meltdown

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Conservatives losing elections, in this case the nasty bit of putrescence that is Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

He was hoping for an outright majority, they currently hold a minority government, and now it looks like the Liberals and the NDP would have control of a minority government.

At the very least, it would prevent the Conservatives from holding an outright majority.

We’ll know tomorrow evening.

Canada Calls Snap Elections

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Here and here.

Here is his political calculus in calling snap elections:

  • If Obama wins, Canadians will favor someone who is closer ideologically to the new president.
  • If the sick old man wins, then Canadians will want someone who will do their best to oppose 4 more years of Bush and His Evil Minions™ without the military restraint.

Thus holding Canadian elections after the US election is simply a losing proposition.

I hope that this doesn’t work for Harper, because he really wants go with Bushonomics, and we can say “buh-bye” to the best health care system in North America if he wins another term.

Canadian Judge Releases Interrogation Vid of 16 Year Old Child

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What has been released is only his interview by a Canadian intelligence agent, but the descriptions are profoundly disturbing, and this is very mild, though there are he was, “sleep deprived for weeks” before the Canadian intelligence agent came in and played ‘good cop’.

This for a child soldier who is a victim, not a terrorist, or at least he wasn’t before being tortured.

Harper is, of course, sitting on his hands about all of this.

Is Canada Upgrading Its Military, Or Is Stephen Harper Downgrading Its Social Safety Net?

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Stephen Harper is is looking to double the Canadian Defense budget over the next 20 years.

While there are doubtless some needs driven by the wear and tear from operations in Afghanistan that need to be addressed, this proposal is far more ambitious, calling for extensive upgrades in weapons systems capabilities, most of which have very little correlation to any future needs, which would be in a peacekeeping/counterinsurgency scenario, where legacy systems with communications and networking upgrades could meet the needs of the conflict just as well as new equipment.

In all fairness though though in a counter insurgency scenario the roughly 10% increase in force size may make sense.

We already know that Mr. Harper is very much of the Western Province (Alberta) tradition, which by Canadian standards is rather wingnutty, so I wonder how much of this is driven by a real need to upgrade forces, since any foreseeable conflict would resemble Afghanistan, where the existing systems are more than adequate, and how much is an attempt to pre-allocate money so it won’t be available for things like the national health service and public education.

There is also a 3rd explanation, which is that if there is a common thread among right wing parties world wide, it is a fetish among the about the creation and maintenance of large military establishment, even when threats do not justify this.

It may also be a combination of all three.

View From North of the Border

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Murray Dobbin has an interesting perspective on the “harmonization” and “integration” of Canada with the US, Americanize Me? No Thanks. He thinks that it’s ill advised, and his first example is quite illustrative:

Now we find out that despite recommendations from the Canadian Pediatric Society and the Canadian Cancer Society that Health Canada dramatically increase the recommended daily does of Vitamin D, the federal agency refuses to do so. Why? Because it is committed to “harmonizing” Canadian nutrition standards with those in the United States.

The interesting thing about Vitamin D is that there are two sources for this, diet, and sunlight, as the human body manufactures it when the skin is exposed to ultraviolet.*

Given the specifics of Canada, further north, less sunlight, the idea that they would need more dietary D is abundantly clear.

More generally, he finds America as a government completely dysfunctional†, America as a society paranoid morass generally bereft of morality†, and America as an economy as an “emerging economic basket case on pace to self destruct.”†

It’s a good read, particularly for Canadians who need to deal with Stephen Harper style boneheads.

*It’s why we have white people in the world. The layer in the skin that manufactures vitamin is beneath the pigment layer, so paler people make more Vitamin D for a given amount of sunlight, so in light starved regions, it favors the pale.
†I Agree

Austan Goolsbee Blowback in Canada

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I think that it’s increasingly clear that the leak of this story was orchestrated by Steven Harper and his bully boys, in this case Michael Wilson, ambassador to the US, though the underlying facts, that Goolsbee said it’s just politics, appear to be true.

The fact is that Harper is in charge of an unpopular minority government, and having an election in parallel with the US would probably cut against them, so now is a good time for the opposition to get a no-confidence vote.

The Canadian people are almost as sick of Bush as the American people, and by holding elections near the same time, it makes the choice clear.

Any followers of Canadian politics want to explain why the opposition is not trying to get snap elections?