Canadian Federal Election

[vrsmith]

I see that there has been no discussion of the recent
Canadian election on Mercedesshop. Canada has
moved on to a new reality. It occurs to me that while
we Canadians understand the situation, it could be
quite confusing to our American friends. Let me start
to educate you about the process.
Mainly, there was an election for the Federal leader and
something was decided. The existing Prime Minister,
(like your president), was re-elected. Sure, he didn't get a
majority vote or even a majority of any kind, but he
is still the Prime Minister. Now we enter a new phase.
He is the leader but will have to deal with alternate
views and possibly even try to compromise with those
views. Americans will find this normal since you have
seen school funding bills attached to increased military
spending. In Canada, however, compromise is rare.
Mostly our system works like a dictatorship. The leader
decides and it is so. Dissent is delivered later, if ever.
That isn't the case now. Historically, situations like this,
(compromise), have been troublesome. Most have not
lasted for very long. The big question in Canada is this:
Will the Prime Minister join with the socialist NDP to keep
control or with the rebel BQ? Not a great choice, but
this is Canada. I think that the government should have
to negotiate a coalition between the Liberals and the
Conservatives. That would be like the Republicans and
the Democrats agreeing on how to run the country.
Don't hold your breath!

[KirkVining]

Being from New Hampshire, I generally have one major interest in Canadian politics: What impact does this have on the possibility of the secession of Quebec? By the way, most of the ardent Bush haters I know want to move to Vancover if he gets re-elected. Are you saying ultra liberals would not enjoy it there? I thought you guys were supposed to be a bunch of pinkos.

[Mark V]

I see nothing in the election that will prove beneficial. It is far worse than ever. Now we have a clearly divided country, conservatives dominate the west, the BQ own Quebec and the Liberals Ontario and the Maritimes. The NDP (who are the pinkos Kurt refered to) have their places in union strongholds like Windor, Hamilton and parts of BC.

Now the liberals take on the NDP (left and lefter for our American freinds) that means the compromise will be completely on how much more to spend and tax. The conservatives and BQ don't have the votes to drop them, and they'd be hard pressed to agree on anything anyway Harper says its black, Duceppe says Harper is big fat racist pig who hates the Quebecois and in Quebec its white anyway because Jean Cretien had it repainted while he led the national Liberals. With the NDP the Liberals have 50% of the seats, not enough to win or lose any vote outright, they need the support of the one independant seat in Vancouver, and just to make things fun, when the house of commons sits next want to guess where the speaker of the house will be from? Thats right, the Conservatives, so that if the independant MP (who is a jilted conservative) wants to vote against the sitting government, the opposition still won't have enough votes because the speaker only votes to break a tie, which is why the speaker won't be a Liberal or NDP, they'd have to sacrifice a vote they can't spare to do that.

The real impact of our new government is that nothing will get done, not more. The day to day business will get done but nothing of signifigance. Our already heavy tax burden, (ask someone in Ontario about Liberal tax promises during an election)
will get heavier and our health care will get worse as more funding is offloaded to the provinces. Possibly the Ad-scam scandal could be driven in by Layton, but I doubt it. If he pushes that cart to market, he'll find the power he supports was corrupt and he will lose the voice he had if they go to another election.

Throw in Western alienation, Eastern arrogance and Quebec imperialism and we have one big disfunctional familly. If I were Quebec, I'd bugger off too. Come to think of it, we never mention the territories, maybe they'll get fed up and join the BQ and teir little country too....

[joel]

I am more optimistic of the results of the election. The larger membership of the opposition, will be a good fiscaliser to the dominant Liberal party.

The Liberals are no Democrats, and so are Conservatives not Republicans.

[mzsmbs]

Originally posted by vrsmith
I see that there has been no discussion of the recent
Canadian election on Mercedesshop.....

Thanks for trying to educate but I am surely more confused.

How can the PM stay in power if he didn't get any kind of majority? You said "something was decided" - something? What? by whom? was it an election or not? Is he actually picked by the majority party?

You also say that all of a sudden the gov may have to compromise, why now?

I really don't know anything about Canadian way of governing so if you would oblige and even give me the basics. that'd be kool. Is there another body besides the house of commons?

Also, what's BQ? The Brits don't have any say do they?

KV,
May not be moving to Vancuver in light of all this; will have to look into Mexico then.

[vrsmith]

I would be happy to offer an overview of Canadian politics.
The country is run by the Prime Minister who prisides over
the federal house of parliament. This is an elected group
of 308 members who propose legislation and vote to pass
that legislation into laws. The Prime Minister is advised by
his cabinet. Cabinet members are regular members of
parliament who are picked by the Prime Minister to head
goverment agencies like the Ministry of Finance, Defence,
Environment, etc.
When a federal election is called, each of 308 ridings have
a list of declared candidates who run for election. They
compete to become the member for the riding. Most have
a party of affiliation. Currently, the elected members' parties
are Liberal, Conservative, BQ-Bloc Quebecois, NDP-New
Democratic Party and one independent. The candidate who
gets the most votes in a riding becomes elected. In a riding
with 3 strong candidates, the winner could be elected with
much less than 50% of the vote.
During election night, a count of winning candidates is kept
by party of affiliation. The party who has the most elected
candidates forms the federal government. Their party leader
becomes the Prime Minister. With 308 members of parliament,
the governing party needs at least 155 in order to have a
majority in the house. With a majority of even 155 to 153, the
government can pass all proposed legislation. In this election,
the incumbent Liberal party candidates won 135 ridings. This
is well short of their previous total of 172. In parliament, a
vote on a bill could now result in a vote of 135 in favor, 173
opposed. The bill(s) would not pass and the government
would not have the confidence of the house. Canadian law
basically doesn't let a party govern in this case. In order to
prevent a 135-173 vote, the Prime Minister will ask one of
the other party leaders to put aside their differences and
side with his party on house votes. In return for joining
the Prime Minister in a coalition, the junior party leader
will be justified in asking for some of his causes to be implimented
by the government. Usually this doesn't happen, officially.
The government puts forward their own causes and normally
they have a majority of members so anything they propose
is approved.
When a legislation is approved by the house, it is next reviewed
by the Canadian senate. This is a group of appointed people
who review and approve proposed legislation. How the senate
is established and how it works is a separate, advanced topic.
Legislation approved by the house and the senate is next sent
to the Queen's Canadian representative. The Governor General
must approve and sign legislation before it becomes the law.
The Governor General is also a separate, advanced topic.

The Canadian system is based on the British parliament and
has evolved over the past 137 years. It isn't a perfect system.
Members and parties can rule without a majority of voter support.
Historical inequities are present in the system. The senate is
basically an ineffective organization. On the plus side, Canada
is a democracy. Every riding gets represented. The system
can be improved gradually. Whether it is currently a good or
bad system of government is debated constantly. In the end,
it has kept the country together since 1867 and is a better system
than many other options.

[Jake1457]

The decision was that the Liberal party garnered the greatrest number of seats in the House of Commons. Each voting area(riding) is a seat in the House, therefore for each riding, one person gets elected. The party with the highest seat count wins the election. A majority goverment enjoys the ability to control any bills that come up as they can out vote the opposition parties. However what happened Monday was that the Liberals won the election, yet their total seat count is less than half of the toal seats. This means that the opposition parties collectivly have more seats, or voting power than the Liberals. Should a vote on a bill occur, the Liberals could potentially lose, and be forced to call an election as a result of a non confidence vote. The only option is to form an alliance with another party. This means they must both compromise, not an easy thing. Many feel that this creates a lame duck government, others believe it is a measure of control to stop irresponsible policy.
In my riding we chose to unseat the Liberal MP who was presently the Minister of Agriculture, and has been around for 16 years. A strong message from a rural riding that they are fed up and looking for a change, in our case Conservative. It had been considered a Liberal stronghold, as was Hamilton(nearby), and many seats were lost. The bottom line is that it's up to the ruling party to start schmoozing if they want to stay in power.

[Jake1457]

Parties in the last election

Lib - Liberal ( Left )
CP - Conservative Party ( Right )
BQ - Block Quebecois ( Only in Quebec )
NDP - New Democrat Party ( Far Left )
GP - Green Party ( Enviroment Oriented )
Christian Party ( only in some areas I believe )

Hope I didn't miss any, my apol. if I did.

[vrsmith]

There is also an independant member of parliament. Chuck
Cadman was the previous 2 time winner in Surrey, BC. He lost
his bid for the Conservative nomination this time due to a bitter
internal struggle. He decided to run as an independant. The
Conservatives revoked his party membership. Chuck won his
seat again. Now he is part of an interesting equation:
135 Liberals + 19 NDP + Chuck Cadman = Majority in parliament.

[Mark V]

And Chuck Cadman recently started undergoing cancer treatment. Want to guess the importance of his seat if he loses that particular battle?

[blackmercedes]

Originally posted by Jake1457
Parties in the last election

Lib - Liberal ( Left )
CP - Conservative Party ( Right )
BQ - Block Quebecois ( Only in Quebec )
NDP - New Democrat Party ( Far Left )
GP - Green Party ( Enviroment Oriented )
Christian Party ( only in some areas I believe )

Hope I didn't miss any, my apol. if I did.

Well, sort of. Here's my take on it...

Liberals - Right
Conservatives - Far Right
Bloc - Center/slighty left -- Quebec
NDP - Center/slightly left
Green - Mismash of enviro, NDP and Bloc actually have stronger Enviro plans.

The problem that we have in Canada is that the majority of people that vote didn't have the person they voted for elected. First-past-the-post means that some candidates are elected with 25% of the vote. Crappy. The Bloc has over 50 seats in the house and the NDP only have 19 despite the NDP having a much greater % of the popular vote.

We need to follow many democracies and institute a proportional representation system.

Minority governments last from 6-18 months, but things can get done. Many of the popular social systems we have now (and take for granted...) were brought about during minority governments where "radical" (then...) viewpoints were able to be heard thanks to coalitions.

[420SEL]

I have to disagree with part of the last post. The NDP is as far left as you can get without being full blown communist.

[fj bertrand]

I like Canada., but it is disappointing to see all the US crap in country.

Travelled thought both single and married, from Victoria to Halifax.

As for elections, at least your vote directly elects somebody, whereas down here, that's not the case. And, like the british system, there is honor with elected officials that resign when failure can be laid at their door. Why, if that was the case, the top 10-15 officials in the Bush administration would be gone. And you think you've got a mess?

[blackmercedes]

Originally posted by 420SEL
The NDP is as far left as you can get without being full blown communist.

Really? Did you read their platform completely? They talk mostly about preserving current social programs and expanding some, but not greatly. In fact, reading the Liberal lie-book is like re-reading the NDP's platform. Most of the NDP's platform was things people want. That is "center" to me.

As to the idea that they would raise taxes greatly, that seemed false to me. Here's the tax platform, and it seems pretty much "neutral" to me...

Guaranteeing full indexing of tax brackets and credits, so that Canadians don’t receive hidden tax increases as wages and salaries rise.

This is communist? The Liberals finally gave us back indexation and eliminated bracket creep. However, they may take it away at any time.

Ensuring all Canadians who make less than $15,000 a year pay no federal income tax.

This is something done by many right-wing conservative governments (like Alberta) and is not "radical" in the slightest.

Removing the GST from family essentials, starting with children’s clothing and medicine, school supplies, books, magazines, women’s hygiene products, and medical equipment. This helps reduce the regressive nature of the GST and would benefit all Canadians. Most people are in favour of abolishing the GST, but this seems like a compromise that no one else has come up with. The Liberals simply lied to us.

Increasing the Child Tax Benefit to $4,900 per child and altering the program to permit Canada’s poorest families, who don’t pay tax, to qualify.

Not a radical increase. I'm not a big fan of increasing the "baby bonus" radically on a per-child basis as it does little to dissuade poor families from having buckets of kids, so this policy is not my fav.

Making the disability tax credit and medical expenses tax credit fully refundable.

This is radically wrong, or left?

Abolishing the security fees applied to air travel.

99.99% of folks would agree with this. I flew a few months back and the $23 ticket was over $100 with fees. Cripes.

Implementing a US-style inheritance tax on inheritances of more than $1 million, exempting in-family transfers of small businesses and family farms.

Why did this create a stir? You get to keep 100% of the first million! Sheesh. Right-wing US has it, and we don't?

Treating income from capital gains the same as all employment income while retaining exemptions for the sale of principal residences and profits from family farms and small businesses.

Sounds about right. Why do I get dinged if I invest in bonds, but not equities? "Safe" investors get the stick. Treat them equally. And check out the excemption.

Reversing corporate tax reductions, recognizing that Canadian corporate taxes are now well below US corporate tax levels.

Has our huge loss of corporate tax meant we keep our companies and jobs? Nope. Even though we shifted the tax burded to over 80% for individuals, companies have still reduced employment levels, sourced off shore, and fled to tax haven nations. We did it to keep them and everyone that could flee still did.

Imposing hefty fines for polluters that match the clean-up costs (the polluter-pay principle).

Seems logical to me.

Freezing EI premium rates at current levels, a measure that will especially help small businesses, which employ more than half of all Canadians.

Seems logical.

Cancelling all tax treaties with tax havens like Barbados.

Like anyone not in the super rich category can take advantage of tax havens anyway. If it means Conrad Black leaves (well, he did anyway, did we notice?) then good riddance.

Canadian corporations should not be permitted to establish shell companies in tax havens and then bring profits home tax-free like Paul Martin did with his Canada Steamship Lines.

No kidding. I can't do that. Why do I have to pay taxes and Paul Martin can skip out on them just 'cause he's rich? This is not a measure that most Candians would agree with?

Ending the practice of letting corporations deduct fines for environmental infractions or unsafe workplaces from their taxes.

Sounds good. Protect workers and the environment.

Closing corporate and very high income tax loopholes like the one that let a prominent Canadian family move $2 billion out of Canada through trust accounts and never pay a cent of income tax on the transaction.

Like this would effect 99.9999% of Canadians. Not a chance. SO the Bronfmans don't vote NDP. Welcome to democracy.

[mzsmbs]

vr, Jake,

thanks, I learned a lot from your comments. very interesting. Most of what you said makes sense and seems pretty fair. So is the PM elected by you guys or the winning party (Lib in this case)?
the riding thing is just like elections here in the US for a representative in the house of representatives (congressional district is what that's called here) Of course a big difference is that there are only two parties here and I can see with having as many could be stifling etc... but I don't understand why the vote against would be non confidence. why not just keep going and putting forth other bills? you guys also said if the non confidence vote happens then you'll have to have another election. That seems a bit funky to me but hey.... wouldn't cooperation be a good thing?
so do your representatives/PM have a term? or any limitations? or are they in power as long as there is no non confidence vote?

and then what the heck is up with Gov General? I though Canada was an independent country? please explain. If any of you want to dwelve into the senate thing that'd be kool too. I don't know if you guys know or care how the gov here is the US works but there is a senate here too. There are only 2 senators per state. It's function is basically the same as the house of rep. just another check in the power structure. the number of perpresenatatives is based on population density so the districs vary in size greatly but not in the amount of constituents.

Could you guys also tell me more how Canada is subdided? I know you have provinces but nothing beyond that. Here the states are devided into counties and then into townships. in some states they have parishes instead.

we also have another type of twonship. it's more of a surveying thing (location purposes) they are 6mi by 6mi but are not necessarily politically connected.

if you guys wouldn't mind telling me more about how provincial govs work, I'd appreciate that too.
I live in Indiana and the state gov here is basicaly a replica of the federal government. counties and towns have their own but they are not always like the state or fed. many have boards of directors or the like that run them but there are other variations and many different names. I also live in Indianapolis which combined the city and county governments in the 70s which I think made a lot of sense and made this city a pretty good one. Less paperwork and less other bureaucracy... but we do have a city police, sheriff and his deputies (county) and of course the state cops that rule in differnt parts of the city. We do have airport and capital police too besides the different university police departments and the public school system has some coptoo; oh, we do have a US marshall also. this nation is definaltely in love with it's police forces...

Ok, sorry about so many questions but I do have one more: do you guys have something like the bill of rights/constitution that is supposed to be the guiding light?

thanks, hey.