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this is actually Harper's third minority government
and the betting is that he will get in for a fourth time ........ with a minority
which begs the question of how long the party will keep him if he can't increase the vote :))
Three very hurried selections this week of Conservative party candidates for seats here in BC ................. no notice that the 3 Conservative, long time MPs, would be retiring.
Candidates given 8 DAYS in which to apply ......... all papers etc to be sent to Ottawa. Even courier takes about 24 hours, if original copies have to be submitted
Vetting for candidates usually takes 2 -3 MONTHS
Guess what??
One candidate selected on Monday asked to resign on Wednesday when media discovered he had been in bankruptcy, and still owed the tax people.
His replacement (ie, the runner-up) was picked on Thursday, by Friday the media had discovered she also had had bankruptcy problems.
The other 2 seats .................... certain selected possible candidates were given advance notice of the deadline for submitting papers. Other possibles were not given that information, and literally did not have time to collect all the information, including the names of 250 members of the party.
and this party doesn't think its done anything wrong!
sylvia
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Our right-winger leadership is similar to the US's more traditional "conservatives" in the sense that the ones in charge actually don't give a flying ** about fetuses or who marries whom or whether anybody wants to hide their guns from the gu'mint.
But they need those ignorant cretins to get elected. If they didn't play to those seats, the people sitting in them might actually notice that the economic policies aren't to their benefit.
The ignorant cretins here are concentrated in Alberta and the ex-urban areas around Toronto. I don't know what it is about the latter -- my mother and sister live among them now, and they look normal ... they're just bigots at heart, for some reason.
Our Supreme Court hasn't yet been tampered with to the extent of the US Supreme Court. Ours is full of tough women and none of that kind of nonsense would get past them.
It's just horrible incrementalism here. What's been happening with criminal law is appalling -- the whole law 'n order agenda, lock 'em up and throw away the key -- when we don't even have a crime problem! -- that even the right-wingers in the US are admitting has been a miserable, expensive failure down there.
For the right wing, it's all about control.
Oh yikes, it's 9 pm and I'm about to miss the episodes of the last season of The Royal that we missed in the fall -- gotta run!
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Are any of those Conservatives like the US Georgia rep Bobby Franklin? If so then, yes, I'd start worrying about women's rights to make decisions about their own bodies.
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Worse off?? ;) We're getting an election; few things could be better!
Except there's an actual serious chance (given how electoral districts and the population are arranged here) that the Conservatives could come out of this with a majority government -- although nothing like a majority of the popular vote.
Oh, you mean our Conservatives are worse than yours? Well, they're certainly nastier. They're just plain junk yard dogs, when it comes to temperament.
But they haven't tried to price working people out of the universities yet. ;)
If they were to get a majority, all bets would be off.
A lot of what they'd want to do is flat-out unconstitutional (one can just imagine how fast they'd be gunning for women's reproductive rights -- they're not just right-wing economically, they're US-style right-wing socially, or at least their base is). But they'd try to do it anyway.
And speaking of gunning for ... the firearms registry is on the top of their list for the death penalty ... which some of them would probably try to bring back too ...
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Good to know that there is somebody worse off than us. Here's hoping we won't follow suit.
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"For the first time in Canadian history ... a committee of Parliament has found a government to be in contempt."
Actually, it's the first time in history in the Commonwealth.
One of the issues was the right-wing "tough on crime" agenda. Longer sentences and the rest of it = more prisons.
And just how much was it all going to cost? Lots. But would the Conservatives tell Parliament how much? Nope.
That's without even getting into the contract for new fighter planes we don't need, bought according to US-imposed specs from a US company at a price double what they could have been got for elsewhere, and as the cost apparently just keeps going up, probably quadruple by now ...
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on a Friday afternoon? Well ... evening for you. It's 3 p.m. here.
You too could have excitement like this, should your coalition govt fall apart. ;)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-government-falls-in-historic-commons-showdown/article1956416/
The second minority government of Stephen Harper has fallen.
Early Friday afternoon, 156 opposition MPs – all of the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloquistes present in the House of Commons – rose to support a motion of no-confidence.
It was also a motion that declared the government to be in contempt of Parliament for its refusal to share information that opposition members said they needed to properly assess legislation put before them.
... Shortly after 10 a.m., the Liberal Leader rose to “inform the House that the official opposition has lost confidence in the government.”
For the first time in Canadian history, he said, a committee of Parliament has found a government to be in contempt.
“We are the people’s representatives,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “When the government spends money, the people have a right to know what it is to be spent on. Parliament does not issue blank cheques.”
This week, the opposition-dominated procedure and House affairs committee found the government to be in contempt for failing to release information related to the costs of crime legislation and the purchase of stealth fighter jets.
“For four months, this House and the Canadian people were being stonewalled by this government and they are being stonewalled still,” Mr. Ignatieff said.
The Liberal Leader’s speech also hammered the Conservative government for its handling of international affairs, for ignoring the needs of Canadians, and for the various scandals in which it has become embroiled – including allegations of election fraud and influence peddling.
... Government Whip Gordon O’Connor was even more blunt in his assessment of the opposition. “When, during the election, a matter of ethics comes up, I would expect Liberal candidates to put bags on their heads.”
Of the Bloc, he said, it “basically has no function. They have no purpose. They are nothing.”
And with the NDP, Mr. O’Connor said, “there is drama, screaming, yelling, outrage. It voted against seniors. ... All I ever hear from its members is talk, talk, talk.”
But the opposition was just as disparaging in its response.
“The fact is that the real record of the government is that it has the worst record on scandals in this country. It has the worst record of disclosure and of not providing information, not only to parliamentarians but to the people of Canada. It has the worst record on insider scams,” NDP House Leader Libby Davies charged.
“The fact that we are now, at this moment in this Parliament, finding contempt surely must be something that deeply disturbs even Conservative members.”
The Conservatives repeatedly tried out their election message that opposition will try to form a coalition should Mr. Harper’s party be returned to government with another minority. ...
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