The Canadian Rant

WILL THE AFGHAN MISSION TOPPLE THE GOVERNMENT? Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe said yesterday that if there aren't any serious changes made to Canada's efforts in Afghanistan than he will put forth a non-confidence motion and attempt to topple the Conservative minority government. If they do manage to table a non-confidence motion than they are obviously going to need some help in order for it to pass. The Bloc would need 155 votes in order for it to pass of which they would only hold 51 assuming that all Bloc members voted against the government. Jack Layton and the NDP, who have repeatedly said they are against the Afghan mission, would probably support the Bloc adding another 29 votes to their count, now at 80. They are going to need to persuade Stephane Dion and the Liberals to join them on this effort, at least 75 of them anyway. Dion has said he will not make up his mind on the issue until he actually sees the motion that Duceppe has proposed. Earlier on this year wh...

THE NDP: TRAPPED IN THEIR OWN IMAGE Party images are very important in regards to Canadian politics. Different parties bring different issues or problems to your mind just by hearing their name. And these party images are very important in determining who will win a given election and what issues are at the forefront in Canada and which are on the backburners. The New Democratic Party, just like other parties, has always had a party image which has both positive and negative connotations for them. The problem with the NDP in particular is that it seems to be trapped in its particular image and will not be successful until it is able to shake it off. In the essay, “Perceptions of Party Competence in the 1997 Election” in Party Politics in Canada Nadeau, Blais, Gidengil, and Nevitte argue that certain parties are associated as being able to best deal with certain issues. Some of these are easier to recognize than others. The Bloc Quebecois has the ability to best defend the interests...

THE LONGEST CONSERVATIVE MINORITY GOVERNMENT... EVER As I pointed out the other day, as of October 29th, the current Harper government is the longest Conservative minority government of all time. That is not a fact that any Conservative should be bragging about by any means. Harper became Prime Minister on Feb. 6, 2006 making this past Wednesday the 10 month mark in his reign. When the Conservatives first took office someone told me that it would only be for 18 months. And while it may be less than 8 months before the next election is called Harper will be in office for much longer than that. I know that back in October I posted a rant about how Harper's time as government was going but today I just wanted to talk about what they have actually done so far in the ten months they have been around. Say what you want about the whole Quebec being a 'nation within Canada' and the same-sex marriage issue, I'm talking about everything else that the Conservatives have done since...

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE MOTION VOTED DOWN IN A MOSTLY FREE VOTE Yesterday, as promised, a vote was held in the House of Commons on a motion introduced by the Conservatives on whether or not we should reopen the same-sex marriage issue. This was a vote that was promised during the Conservative election campaign. It was a vote that was supposed to be a free vote where all MPs, government and opposition, could vote however they felt. For the most part this was achieved yesterday as the Conservative motion was voted down by a count of 175-123 in the House of Commons. I think that the only thing that would have made this better was if the NDP and Bloc Quebecois would have let their members vote freely as the Conservatives and Liberals did. Harper has said that he accepts the decision and will not revisit the issue in the future because all he wanted was a free vote in Parliament unlike the votes that occurred in 1999 and last year. Stephane Dion, who of course voted against the motion, was still ...

INSERT RANDOM FACT HERE... Did you know that Stephen Harper's current Conservative minority government is currently the longest Conservative minority government in Canadian history and it has been since October? Doesn't say a whole lot about Conservative minority governments of the past but does say something about the current one. - DCM

DION BUCKLES UNDER THE PRESSURE Well it seems that Stephane Dion has said that he will allow the Liberals to freely vote on the upcoming same-sex marriage issue. This is good news because that means that there will be more MPs who are voting freely on the issue. The problem still lies that the NDP and the Bloc are probably both going to vote against it and will not have a free vote but if the two major political parties are voting freely it is better than just one. My problem with Stephane Dion is still that he doesn't want the issue to even be reopened saying that by reopening it we will be defying the Charter. This is not the case at all because when the vote occurred last time it was not a free vote as I have pointed out many times before which I think is horrible democratic practice. I don't particularly care so much about the outcome of the vote but as long as the vote does take place and is a free one. Of course I have my own opinions on the whole same-sex marriage issue ...

A FREE VOTE ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE... NOT IF DION CAN HELP IT One of the campaign promises that Stephen Harper made leasing up to the recent federal election was that there would be a free vote in the House of Commons on the issue of same-sex marriage. Some people are thinking that a vote has already taken place so why revisit the issue and think that Stephen Harper is trying to stop same-sex marriage from happening. However, all that he is really trying to do is have a free vote on the issue, something that was unable to happen during the reign of the Liberals. When the vote took place the last time parties were forced to vote along partisan lines and may not have been able to truly vote their own conscience or that of their constituents. I think that the most ironic thing here is that in 1999 when there was a vote on same-sex marriage under Jean Chretien, Stephane Dion voted against it. My, the times have changed. While Harper may be opposed to the idea of same-sex marriage I still thi...

WHO IS STEPHANE DION? When you look at the 8 candidates that entered the Liberal leadership convention over the weekend you could see a vast array of backgrounds. You had a former Progressive Conservative, a former NDP premier, a political newbie, etc. It looked promising for the Liberals that they were finally going to be able to initiate some change at the helm. So why in the hell did the choose Stephane Dion? Out of all of the possible options Dion is the closest to the old Liberal ways under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Dion is no newcomer to Canadian federal politics. He has served as a cabinet minister for both Chretien and Martin and knows a thing or two when it comes to the House of Commons. The big focus of the leadership campaign that I saw was a focus on change. They wanted to choose a new leader who would help rebuild and unify the party and to give it a new look as it goes up against Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. But than they go and choose more of the same. Dio...

STEPHANE DION, LEADER OF THE LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA

AND THE WINNER IS... STEPHANE DION The votes have been cast and the results are in. Stephane Dion has been chosen as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. After going all the way to a 4th ballot to determine a winner Dion has emerged on top of the heap as the replacement for Paul Martin as leader. Dion ended up with 54.7% of the votes on the 4th ballot beating out front runner Michael Ignatieff with 45.3% of the vote. After barely placing 3rd in the 1st ballot Dion was able to overcome clear favourites Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae and now has the reigns of the party. So what does this mean for the future of the Liberal party? It means that Stephane Dion has become the face of the Liberal party and probably has inherited one of the toughest jobs on the planet. He now faces the task of trying to rebuild the Liberal party and contest the Conservatives in the nest election, whenever that may be. The common theme that I saw come out of the leadership convention is that no matter w...

A DECEMBER TO REMEMBER It has been awhile since my keystrokes have graced this page, not since Oct. 17 I believe. It is now December and I assure you now it will be a December to remember. And not because of that present that you did, or didn't get on Christmas morning. The month starts off with the Liberal leadership race which is taking place as I write this and I promise there will be more on this in a moment. Following the leadership convention there is new life in the same-sex marriage question in Canada. As well we have already seen the recognition of Quebec as a 'nation within Canada'. It is December 2nd and until things settle down for Christmas there will be a lot to say. The Liberal leadership convention is taking place as I write in Montreal. It started yesterday with the 1st ballot. For those of you not following I will recap what has happened up until now. There were 8 candidates on the 1st ballot on Friday night. To clarify for everyone a candidate must receiv...

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT STEPHEN HARPER This is for all of you out there (and I've mentioned you before) who think that the election of Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada was the worst possible outcome of the last election. For those of you who see Harper as a bible-thumping, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion westerner, who helped found the Reform Party I have something I would like to share with you. You are wrong! There are a lot of people out there, including many who vote for him, who have no idea where he comes from, what his roots are, and what he believes in. I hope to enlighten you a little bit. Quick question: What city or province is Harper from? Answer: Alberta... wrong. Stephen Harper is from Toronto, Ontario (just for the record that is not out west) He was born and raised in Ontario and went to university there before he moved out west to attend the University of Calgary. There has been a lot of criticism thrown Harper's way in regards to his social beliefs on ...

LIBERALS CONTINUE TO RUN INTO TROUBLES While the federal Liberal party is in the midst of an important leadership race there continue to be blemishes appearing around every corner. After the Super Weekend a little while ago where all of the ridings chose their delegates that will be going to the leadership convention in December to vote for a new leader Michael Ignatieff appeared to have a solid grasp on over 30% of voters. There are eight candidates still left in the race and the only one close to Ignatieff is Bob Rae with 19% which is surprising seeing that the 4 people who have dropped out of the race since it began have thrown their support behind Rae. After these numbers were published Ignatieff felt that his numbers would continue to grow and he would end of as leader of the Liberal party. All I can say is that he's trying his hardest to prevent that from happening. Since the weekend Ignatieff has pulled off the brilliant move of saying that Israel is guilty of war crimes in ...

FEBRUARY 6, 2006 TO THE PRESENT: 8 MONTHS AND COUNTING Does this date mean anything to you? If someone asked you what happened on this day in history would you know? February 6th, 2006 was the day the Stephen Harper became the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada. He won the winter election to succeed Paul Martin as PM and put the Conservatives back into power after 13 years. There are many people, including me, who were happy to hear this knowledge and there are those who are skeptical. For those of you out there who dreaded the day that Harper became PM of Canada and thought that he would do a horrible job I want you to take a look at what has happened over the last 8 months. It brought to an end constant criticism of the government due to the sponsorship and income trust scandals. And it brought forward a new chapter in Canadian history of new hope. There were five key points to the Conservative election campaign: federal accountability, tax reform, crime, child care, and health care. In j...

NOVA SCOTIA FINALLY JOINS THE REST OF THE FREE WORLD Well the province that I live in and love has finally come to its senses. What am I talking about? We finally can buy stuff seven days a week in this province starting today because before today the government decided that on one random day a week (turned out to be Sundays) we weren't allowed to shop. Now Nova Scotia can partake in shopping whenever they want and store owners can open whenever they want. The people of Nova Scotia recently took part in a plebisite on Sunday Shopping where they voted on whether they thought there should be Sunday Shopping or not and if they did whether it should be all year round or just the 6 weeks before Christmas. For some reason the people of NS voted against Sunday Shopping and that was supposed to be the end of it. Then two large grocery chains (aka. Sobeys and the Atlantic Superstore) found a little loophole in the law that allowed them to open on Sundays. Because of this the government of N...

SHOPPING FOR A POLITICAL PARTY LIKE SHOPPING FOR A CAR? So I was sitting in my Canadian Political Parties class the other day when my prof just happened to mention something about how most people will not put as much effort into choosing a political party as they would into shopping for a new car. When people want to buy a new car they are going to look at all of the makes and models and packages and warranties and such. Do you think they go into that much detail when they vote or choose a political party? For most, the answer is no and for good reason but something about her comment got me thinking. What if choosing a political party was like buying a new car and what would that be like? So, after thinking about it for a little while here is what I came up with. I think that all of the political parties in Canada can be easily coverted into a car company. Now obviously there are more car companies in this world then there are major Canadian political parties but this is my best attemp...

24 HOURS: HOW MUCH COULD REALLY HAPPEN? How much can really happen in the period of 24 hours? I mean, seriously, since I ranted on yesterday about the "boneheadedness" of the Pope so much has happened that I've barely been able to keep up with it all. Right now I will attempt to portray all of this information to you as best I can with my own remarks of course. And after this rant is all done with a will share with you my new theory on political parties that i have temporarily entitled, "Shopping for a Political Party Like Shopping for a New Car?" I honestly don't know where to start, maybe the best way to go about it would be to work from the beginning in my attempt at some kind of chronological order. Yesterday was the first day of the Fall Session of Parliament in Ottawa. It started out with a moment of silence for the victims of the school shooting in Montreal and was followed by two main issues: gun registry and Afghanistan. Anyone who did not see that ...

HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN ONE MAN PISS OFF? Jack Layton is no longer the Bonehead of the Day, as hard as that is for me to say. I'm not saying that he is no longer a bonehead but just that we have a new contender in the mix. And, for that matter, he isn't even a new contender. There have only ever been two BOTD's (Bonehead of the Days) and if Jack Layton is one of the then that means the other one is... that's right, you guessed it... Pope Benedict XVI. I feel much more confident in labelling him a bonehead now because he is making it too difficult not too. After the events of last week when he was coming down on Canada for being too progressive allowing things like same-sex marriage and abortion he decided to piss off a whole new group of people the other day. Let's say, oh just for the hell of it, EVERY MUSLIM IN THE WORLD!!! First he offends the 30+ million people in Canada but that wasn't enough for him so he chose a bigger target of about 21% of the entire world!...

MORE ON SCHOOL SHOOTINGS; LEADERSHIP RACE The shooting rampage in Montreal still seems to be the top story today but I think I will shy away from that topic for the moment for something a little lighter... say a Liberal leadership update. Since the election last January when Stephen Harper and the Conservatives moved into office and Paul Martin stepped down as federal Liberal leader there have been twelve people declare that they will be vying for the position for top dog in the Liberal party. Not an easy job because they will be responsible for trying to bring a new look to the Liberal party and restore its position it held before the last election. As the leadership race goes on the field will begin to thin out as it has already started to do where leadership contenders will bow out of the race and throw their support behind another leadership hopeful. There has already been the emergence of a few frontrunners such as Michael Ignatieff, Scott Brison, Ken Dryden, and Bob Rae. And ther...

TRAGEDY STRIKES MONTREAL'S DAWSON COLLEGE There are three specific issues that I wanted to address this morning. I'm sure that you've all heard about the shootings at Dawson College in Montreal. Even those of you south of the border should have heard of it by now because it has been all over CNN and the rest of the news sources down there. Kimveer Gill opened fire at the college in downtown Montreal killing one girl and wounding nineteen others including five still in critical condition. Gill had a live journal on www.vampirefreaks.com that he updated just hours before he began the shooting and it pictured him with semi-automatic assault rifle and the caption read: Ready for Action. This is very upsetting news to most of us and the thought going through everybody's mind this morning is why. The police had to kill him to stop the shooting so it will be hard to find out the answer to that very question. On the website he calls himself Trench and he said that you will come...

CONDI AND PETE VISIT HALIFAX Yesterday was the five year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. PM Stephen Harper made a speech last night to remember those attacks and the current Canadian war effort in Afghanistan. The transcript of Harper's speech is below. Meanwhile, here is Nova Scotia United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited with federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter MacKay. As I left school yesterday I was sitting in traffic for an unsual amount of time without moving and finally came to the realization that it was probably because Condoleezza Rice was on her way into the city and they have traffic all blcoked off... and I was right. I turned on the radio and heard the voice of a guy who was at the front of all this and he said that her motorcade was on Bayers Road heading for downtown. It's not too often you can use the US Secretary of State as the reason for you being late for work. While I was sitting in traffi...

SEPTEMBER 11th, 2006: 5 YEARS LATER Here is the transcript of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's speech yesterday: Good evening. Today is the 5th anniversary of the terrible events of September 11th, 2001. I am speaking to you from the Hall of Honour in the Centre Block of Parliament. With me are some Canadians whose lives have been touched by 9/11 in ways that most of us can't even begin to imagine. Men and women who lost loved ones in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Tanja Tomasevic, who lost her husband, Vladimir; Danny Eisen who lost his cousin, Danny; and Maureen and Erica Basnicki, who lost their husband and father, Ken. I asked them to join me because words alone are not enough to express what needs to be said today. As we pay tribute to the 24 Canadians who lost their lives on that infamous day five years ago, their family members remind us that they were real people with real lives. Lives that were cut short - deliberately so - by a murderous act of terrorism. Like...

JACK LAYTON BONEHEAD OF THE DAY

Well the first full week of school has begun and those glorious "syllabus days" are over. You know, the part where the classes actually last more than twenty minutes and there are actual lectures and reading and such. Legal Thinking and Canadian Political Parties look promising to me and my other classes will suffice. I find it hilarious that it is only the third day of school and already there are people swarming around the computers in the DAL library. My favourite two movies out right now are still Invincible and The Illusionist and are what I continue to recommend to people who ask me, "Should I go see The Covenant or The Protector?" Anyways, on to more pressing matters. Over the weekend the NDP held a national party convention in Quebec where Jack Layton maintained a 92% approval rating from the party. I have two comments about this one little fact. It makes sense that his rating is so high just by the NDP's showing in the last election under his leadership...

I'm on a roll here today with my fourth rant of the day. For those of you keeping score out there that means I've had more posts today than in the last 6 months. Maybe I'm starting a new trend or something, for myself anyway. I just got out of my Comparative Politics class and I've now determined that I will have no shortage of material for my ranting. But my rant today has nothing to do with comparative politics because I just read an article that makes me less than happy. Almost to the point where I would want to rant about it, now if only I had something in which to share my rant... wait a minute. I don't know if any of who are aware but when Pope John Paul II died a little while back and the process of electing a new pope began I was in favour of Joseph Ratzinger and was happy when he was elected Pope Benedict XIV. Not that I'm Catholic or anything, I just have an opinion in these matters. Anyway, all praise I had for Benedict is now gone because of what he ...

The main focus of Stephen Harper right now is on the Senate. He has become the first prime minister in Canadian history to appear before a Senate committee as he tries to push forth a number of Senate-related bills to reform the Senate. The main focus of his appearance yesterday in front of the committee was to change the term limits of senators. Currently, once a senator is appointed they can stay in the Senate until they turn 75 which means if they are appointed when they're 50 they can serve a term of 25 years! Harper is looking to set a term limit where terms of 9 years for example are served which are not based on age or anything like that. Harper and the Conservatives are taking aim at the Senate and its reform is high on the agenda for them. Besides term limits Harper is looking for an elected Senate to make it more democratic. The Upper House was originally initiated to promote regional representation at the federal level, however, it has become redundant as senators are ju...

Just like me, the Parliament takes a break over the summer. Now I could use this as an excuse for, besides today, why I haven't posted since June but that doesn't mean that the world stops turning. Some very interesting things have happened over the summer of 06 so right now I will attempt to give you a Coles Notes version of it all. Stop me if I'm going too fast. The Liberal Leadership Race is still going on and won't be finished until Dec. 3rd. The deadline for entering the race hasn't even officially gone by yet until the end of this month (aka. my birthday). There have been many names you have declared and many big names who have said they won't seek the leadership of "Canada's governing party". The top contenders so far are a political newcomer and superstar (Michael Ignatieff), a former Conservative (Scott Brison), a former player in the NHL (Ken Dryden), a former NDP premier of Ontario and almost Governor General (Bob Rae), and a Kennedy (Ge...

I don't even know what to say. It has been another three months in between posts for me so if you average that out that means in the past 6 months I have posted 3 rants... including this one. I back in school, grudgingly, which means I will be following politics a lot closer, you know, with me being a poli sci major and all. So I plan to offer up lots of insight in to the goings on around this world and you can take that for what it is... pure brilliance. I don't plan on getting into too much with this here rant however I do plan another one for later on today which will touch up on all of the stuff I've been talking about since I started this thing. The Liberal leadership race is still on, there is all an NDP convention of some sort, Parliament will be coming back into session soon, Harper is still doing a great job, and many other interesting things. There is no lack of political events happening for me to take up pages of space and hours of reading for your eyes. You may...