The Canadian Rant

Yesterday the Liberals were scrambling to figure out a way to select a new leader fast so that they would be ready when Parliament resumes in January. There was indecision in how to go about selecting a new leader whether it be by caucus vote or full online/phone voting. Dominic Leblanc dropped out of the race leaving just former Ontario NDP Premier Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff, both frontrunners in the last leadership race when Dion won. Rae has made the choice for the Liberals much easier today as he is expected to drop out of the leadership race which will leave just Ignatieff and the only contender. Once the new leader is selected Dion will be stepping down as Liberal leader immediately allowing the Liberals to get set for the budget Harper is set to announce when Parliament resumes in mid-January. Michael Ignatieff is a well know academic who has a PhD from Harvard and has been a professor at many prestigious universities in the world including both Oxford and Harvard. As I hav...

Another new twist has occurred in the question of who will be replacing Stephane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party. Last week we saw Dion sign a coalition deal with Layton and the NDP to bring down the Conservative government to replace it with their own coalition government. If this were to occur Dion would become prime minister and the Liberal leadership convention in May would determine the new leader and the new prime minister. But now, Harper has suspended Parliament and halted the future of a coalition government until at least January. And as I said last week, the coalition has already begun to break down and it will unlikely last until then. In reaction to this the Liberals want to act fast and get a new leader as soon as possible. So instead of waiting until the leadership convention in May they are trying to come up with a new way to elect a leader. Dion is expected to announce his resignation as early as this weekm if not today so that a new leader can take over to be hea...

Harper was able to dodge a bullet by convincing Governor General Michaelle Jean to suspend Parliament until the new year. The coalition deal struck by the Liberals and the NDP, supported by the Bloc, will be unable to force a non-confidence vote anytime soon to bring down the Conservative minority and form a coalition government with outgoing Liberal leader Stephane Dion as Prime Minister. On Wednesday night Harper issued a national address broadcast on TV to the country vowing to stop the coalition at all costs. His message was followed by responses from the other party leaders on Harper's comments. The video of Liberal leader Dion was not only late going to air but it was of very poor quality prompting remarks of just how bad things are getting for the Liberal party. Since 2006 the Liberals have gone through two federal elections, a leadership race and are headed into another so they are getting low on financial support. This may be part of the reason they opposed the recently u...

Yesterday, the Liberals and the NDP signed a coalition deal with the support of the Bloc Quebecois in hopes that they will force a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons and bring down Harper and the Conservatives. Then they will form a coalition government with Stephane Dion becoming the Prime Minister until the Liberal leadership convention in May. The proposed cabinet would include both Liberal and NDP cabinet ministers. And the Bloc, although not officially a part of the coalition will be supporting it. Currently the non-confidence vote is scheduled for next Monday, Dec. 8th. I would like to point out exactly how absurd this "coalition" actually is. We've all lived through Liberals governments in the past, unless you've been born in the last three years, and it can sometimes be tolerable. But for the NDP and the Bloc to have any say in the way this country is run is ridiculous. Only the Liberals could hatch a deal with a separatist party allow them some contr...

Yesterday, federal Finance Minister Jim Falherty released a fiscal update regarding Canada's approach to the international financial crisis. All opposition parties, Liberals, NDP and the Bloc, are vehemently opposed to the update and have all vowed to vote against it when it comes to that. And unlike during the last parliamentary session where Liberals would be absent for votes so that the legislation would pass they are saying the will show up in full force and if it means bringing down the government then so be it. Layton, Dion, and Duceppe have all stated they will vote against the current update unless serious changes are made to it and the Conservatives are staying strong and won't back down. So what does this mean? It means that if the update is voted down, it will be considered a confidence motion and the Conservative minority government will no longer have the support of the House of Commons and can no longer be the government. This does not necessarily mean that we w...

Today I decided I would take a step back from Canadian politics for a moment and focus on something that I have had a lot of interest in as of late. The international media had made it one of their main focuses too. I'm talking about pirates and piracy, and more specifically the pirates in Somalia. Obviously, pirates have been around for century and there is a lot of history out there on them but today's pirates are more sophisticated, more heavily armed, and have bigger targets. The pirates in Somalia have been around for many years but they have garnered so much attention in the last couple months because pirate attacks have more than doubled since last year and their targets are getting bigger. One of the most recent ships hijacked was the Sirius Star, a Hong Kong supertanker that has over two million barrels of oil totalling over $200M. They are holding the ship for ransom along with about 16 others in the waters off of Somalia. They have the crews hostage, but treat them ...

On Oct. 14th Harper and the Conservatives were elected as the governing party in Canada and this time with an even stronger minority. Today, that government gets back to work as the new session of Parliament begins and we will see what the new alignment of the House of Common will look like and what they can accomplish. The first order of business is to elect a Speaker of the House of Commons. Liberal MP Peter Milliken has been the Speaker in the last Conservative minority, as well as in Paul Martin's minority and the latter part of Jean Chretien's government. He has mostly stood unopposed in this role as even Conservatives and the NDP have embraced him as Speaker. However, in the last session of Parliament he seemed to have lost control of the House and this time around there are quite a few people, from all parties, looking to take his spot. The Speaker of the House has a lot of different responsibilities, one of the major ones being a tie breaking vote in result of a tie dur...

Say what you want about Americans, their leaders, and their relationships with the rest of the world but let's get one thing straight: what happens in the United States affects us in Canada in many ways. One of the things that many of us, as Canadians, define ourselves as is Not-American. And that is fine as long as you realize that we have a very strong relationship with them in many different ways. Our biggest tie to Americans would have to be economically as we do the majority of our international trade with them. So when the Americans elect a new president and government like they did on Nov. 4th we will see the effects here in Canada. For now I am going to look at what the American election means for Canada from a political standpoint. The Americans shifted their government from a George Bush-led administration to a remarkable Barack Obama administration. This shift will take a couple of months as Obama's transition team gets to work on taking over everything Bush was in c...

Now that Stephane Dion has announced his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party and the party has announced a date for their leadership contention we can now take a look at those running to replace him and see if anyone stands out. And the outlook... is not good. While there have only been two people who have publicly stated they will seek the leadership role the bigger news is the people who will not be in the hunt. Former NDP premier of Ontario Bob Rae, who ran against Dion in the last leadership race, has announced he will once again try and win the leadership. Along with him the only other name to come forward is New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc. Frank McKenna, who many would consider to be an excellent leader for the Liberals, has stated he will not be entering the race. The former premier of New Brunswick and Canadian Ambassador to the United States has no intention to run in the leadership race. I would consider him to be the best person to put in charge of the Liberal par...

STEPHANE DION ANNOUNCES HIS RESIGNATION In a highly anticipated move, Liberal leader Stephane Dion has announced his resignation. Dion will stay on as leader of the party until the upcoming leadership convention in which a new leader will be chosen. This makes Dion the first Liberal leader not to become Prime Minister since the 1800's. After a historical low in voter support many Liberals have been calling for Dion's resignation and now they have received their wish. Now the focus turns to who will be in the running to replace Diona s Liberal leader and who has the best chance at going up against Harper in the next federal election, whenever that may be. Top candidates from the last Liberal leadership convention such as Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff, and Gerard Kennedy along with Frank McKenna and John Manley are all considered to be frontrunners although no one has yet to say they intend to run for leader as of yet. It will be interesting to see who puts their name forward and ...

VOLPE CALLS FOR DION'S RESIGNATION On Wednesday I mentioned that there would be no immediate action by Stephane Dion to step down as leader of the Liberal Party and make way for a new leader to take them into the next election. There were reports yesterday suggesting that Dion would make an announcement before the end of the week but were then compltely denied by the Liberal Party. While former Liberal leadership candidates Bob rae and Michael Ignatieff have been deflecting questions about their intentions in regards to leadership and about Dion's leadership there has been no one to actually come out publicly and say the Liberals need a new leader... until now. Joe Volpe, former cabinet minister and member of the Liberal Party, has come out publicly in an interview and demanded Dion's resignation so that the Liberals can focus on getting some new leadership. Volpe, ran in the last Liberal leadership race which saw Dion take over the reigns from Paul Martin. His campaign wa...

WHAT DID THE CONSERVATIVES ACCOMPLISH? 2006-2008 IN REVIEW On Jan. 23rd, 2006 Stephen Harper was elected Prime Minister of Canada and the Conservative Party formed a minority government ending almost 13 years of Liberal leadership in Canada under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Many argue that minority governments are unproductive because without a majority of seats it is difficult for a government to pass any legislation and must gain support of at least one other party in order to do so. Harper called an election a year early partially because of this very reason. It was becoming increasingly difficult to get things done in Ottawa because of the lack of support from the Liberals, NDP, the Bloc, and most importantly the Liberal-dominated Senate. Yesterday, Oct. 14th, 2008, Harper has landed himself another minority government, albeit this one much stronger. But while many are contemplating what this new government will do let's ponder a moment at what the longest Conservative minor...

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE LIBERALS? Fifty years ago in 1958 John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservatives won an overwhelming majority government while the Liberals occupied just 48 seats. In 1984, two years before I was born, Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives won their own massive majority government leaving the Liberals with just 40 seats in the House of Commons. These two points in history represent the only time Liberal support has been lower than it is right now since 1882. Stephane Dion's Liberals walked away from the Oct. 14th election with just 76 seats in the House of Commons. The big difference between now and those elections in '58 and '84 is that we have a minority government as opposed to a lop-sided majority seen by Diefenbaker and Mulroney. So what does this mean for the future of the Liberals and their leader, Stephane Dion? Following yesterday's federal election and the serious blow dealt to the Liberals at the hands of Canadian ...

HARPER'S NEW ECONOMIC PLAN Today, the day after the general election in which Stephen Harper's Conservatives walked away with a minority government Stephen Harper has made an announcement regarding a new 6-point economic plan. This is in response to the current economic crisis facing the world. This a huge news as it will determine how the Canadian government will deal with the financial troubles that the country, along with many others around the world, are facing right now. I don't have all the details of this plan as of yet so I can't speculate as to what it will contain but there is a comment I wanted to make about it. Harper is choosing the day AFTER the election to make this huge economic announcement... Does anyone see why this might confuse me? Harper, an economist, is very strong, along with the rest of the Conservative Party, when it comes to fiscal management and managing the economy. History has shown that voters turn to the Conservatives in times of econom...

WELCOME BACK!!! It has been just over a year since the last time I have posted on this site but I am back now and will be back regularly. I'm welcoming myself back to posting on this site and welcoming the Conservative government back after increasing their minority government in yesterday's election. I will have lots to talk about regarding this election, what it means for Canada in the future, the upcoming American presidential election, and much more. Obviously, i won't be able to get to all of that today so I'm just going to focus on the big news of the day. After a 5-week campaign we finally have a result, a Conservative minority government stronger than the one that went into the election. There have been many critics today stating that Canada wasted $300M on an election campaign and ended up with the same result. You can look at it that way or you can look at it in a more objective way. The Conservatives made gains across the entire country except for two areas:...