So, is anything different yet?

[KamaAina]

Is the beer starting to get watered down? Timmies tending more toward the day-old? More and more U.S. channels popping up on your TVs? (oh, wait a minute...) Attendance down at hockey games? (actually, that one may not be Harper's fault either; I have yet to figure out what that trapezoidal thing behind the goal is supposed to be...)

Seriously, how will you be able to tell when he tries to push Canada over the cliff? Watch for the "frog in the hot tub" effect in which the Cons turn up the temperature, but slowly, so that by the time you realize you're being boiled alive, it's too late... :scared:

[Spazito]

1. Nah, Harper has already put one big foot into his mouth and

soon will have both and trying to figure out why, lol. He has a VERY BIG collar and very short leash on him so the damage, if any, will be minor.

He already has his own party members mad at him and so soon, it is delicious!

[Bragi]

2. Boiled frogs indeed

Yep, I see that happening.

Harper will sucessfully dismantle the Libs child-care deal, reintroduce the baby bonus and the GST cut, all with great public support. They'll do the accountability act thing, which will also be popular, and throw the social cons a few bones (minor law and order stuff.)

The NDP, who helped elect Harper, will support them on all these initiatives, and continue to spend their time attacking the liberals as they try to rebuild.

Harper will eventually call an election when the polls look good for him, and come back with a comfy majority with only about 40 per cent of the vote. Then the real conservative agenda will be unvieled, and boiled frogs we will all be.

The cons will then stay in power as long as the NDP and the Libs refuse to cooperate, and keep dividing the center left majority in Canada.

Wake me when it's over.

- B

[hopeisaplace]

3. You said it, "wake me when it's over" ...I agree with what you said

pretty much, that's how I think it will unfold too.
Scares me a lot, only cause Harper's conservatism, imo, is more
extreme than the conservatism that Canada has witnessed
in the past.

[Telly Savalas]

4. The NDP will support dismantling the NDP-Liberal child care deal?

You're making that up.

[Bragi]

10. Of course Jack will support Steven

Jack will have no problem supporting the dismantling of Dryden's child care deal, which as I recall, came into being without requiring legislation, or support from any opposition party, the NDP included.

With Jack's support, Harper will get to enact his $1200 baby bonus, and as a favour to his buddy Jack, Stevie will add some inconsequential sum to the fund for new child care spaces he already announced in the past election, which he will let Jack claim as his great accomplishment.

Jack will then once again spend his time in the next election ignoring Harper while attacking the Liberals and dividing the centre left majority vote. Harper will win a majority of seats with a 40 per cent plurality, and then we will see what his real aganda looks like.

As I said earlier, wake me when it's time for Canada's centre-left majority to unite behind a single party. Until then it's going to get pretty ugly.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

11. NDP making a big announcement tomorrow on child care

according to Mike Duffy and this thread on Rabble.ca.

Just curious: how do you like your crow?

[Bragi]

16. Here's my prediction...

Tory-friendly Jack, fresh from running the most right-wing NDP campaign ever, will make a series of carefully crafted demands (sic) on child care that Stevie will eventually be able accept with little problem, but not until, by agreement, he gives Jack a respectable time period to huff and puff in the media about how he is relevant, getting things done, blah, blah, blah.

I suspect the substantive deal will involve Jack supporting Stevie's regressive and anachronistic baby bonus in exchange for Stevie not trashing all the gains in child care made by Dryden, which is what is in the cards anyway, since the Liberals will likely support this anyway, and since Jack on his own still remains, alas, a vote short of being relevant.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

18. NDP to introduce child-care bill when Parliament returns

OTTAWA -- New Democrat MP Olivia Chow says the party will introduce a bill to set national child-care standards when Parliament resumes in April.

Chow told a news conference in her Toronto riding today that the proposed legislation will aim to protect and build on programs put at risk by the new Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

The Tories plan to scrap a $5-billion child-care deal the former Liberal government negotiated with the provinces and introduce their own $1,200-a-year per-child allowance.

Chow said the proposal by the NDP, which could hold the balance of power in the new minority Parliament, is the only way to guarantee a national system of quality care for children.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=be1fdcdb-bc33-44ce-892b-31f6d2568438&k=53988

[Bragi]

20. Wow. A Private Members Bill...

Good thing the NDP helped to defeat the Liverals and put the Tories in power so they can now eliminate the fed-prov child care plan. We'll at least have a Private Members Bill from Chow that will say grand things but go nowhere. Great.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

21. It will pass with support from the Liberals and BQ

So, back to you, Mr Liberal. What's your party going to do? And are the Liberals going to vote against the Conservative proposal if Harper makes it a matter of confidence?


CBC:

The strategy could put the NDP on a collision course with the ruling Conservatives, who campaigned on a promise to cancel a series of provincial funding deals for day care that were negotiated and signed by Paul Martin's Liberals.

For Chow's proposal to be passed into law, the NDP legislation would have to be supported by Liberal and Bloc Québécois MPs.

However, the Conservatives will first have the opportunity to introduce their own day-care legislation in Parliament, and could make its passage a matter of confidence.

If they took that approach, their bill's defeat would topple the government, triggering a second federal election campaign in 2006.

[Bragi]

22. It will simply get nowhere.

Read the rules on Private members Bills. This one will die on the Order Paper like all the rest. It's a one-day headline-seeking sideshow of no consequence.

- B

[daleo]

23. That was my thought too

If I remember my pol sci 101, the procedural requirements for a private members bill are extremely onerous, regardless of the makeup of the Parliament. You essentially have to have everyone on board beforehand, to manage the trick, which is why successful private member's bills tend to be very much of the motherhood issue variety.

Here's an explantion, but it isn't easy to interpret.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/house/precis/chap15-e.htm

This is a little easier to grasp:

"Although any elected member of the House of Commons may introduce new legislation of their own, referred to as a "Private Members' Bill," it is an infrequent occurrence that one is ever enacted. In the 37th Parliament 2nd Session, of the 471 Private Members' bills tabled, only four received royal assent (although some others were passed by the House of Commons). None of these were significant changes to socio-economic matters affecting the country and each of these were dramatically modified in the process. Private Member's Bills require considerable amount of time, energy, research and other resources needed just to prepare a bill for introduction into Parliament. However, few of these receive the time and Government support needed to pass them. Often, though, popular private members' bills are adopted by the government and become part of a government bill."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_prime_minister

[Bragi]

25. You're starying to get it...

Quite right. An NDP Private Members Bill would pass only if it has the support of the Libs and the Bloc. The NDP votes are irrelevant.

This is why the NDP is now noisily trying to get out of the gate first in the media on this issue. Their apparent hope is that by doing so, some people might be confused into thinking that Showboat Jack saved the Liberal child care deal, when in fact it will be the combined Lib-Bloc opposition that will do this.

On the matter of a confidence vote, in a minority setting there are numerous procedural ways a majority opposition can stop something from happening without requiring a confidence vote that would automatically trigger an election.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

27. I'm referring specifically to the child care proposal,

because presumably the Conservatives won't vote against their own legislation.

But you knew that.

[Telly Savalas]

19. As I recall...

the Liberals promised that they'd deliver on a child-care deal for 12 years, but is was only when they no longer had a majority that they finally felt compelled to make good on the promise. What an astounding coincidence.

And even without evidence provided by other posters in this thread, the proposition that the NDP would advocate abandoning the child care plan is ridiculous. Even if you make the faulty assumption that the party has no principles, it's hard to come up with a reason that they'd alienate a huge part of their base by pushing for such a right wing objective. It'd be political suicide.

[Bragi]

24. This is the thing about it all...

The NDP do not effectively hold the balance of power. if I have the moth right, in order to stop the Harper government from doing anything, or to impose anything on them, you have to have both the Libs and the Bloc onside in the House. The NDP on its own doesn't matter.

- B

[Minstrel Boy]

26. not so,

however much you wish the NDP into irrelevence.

Here's the House today:

CON:125
LIB:102
BQ : 51
NDP: 29
IND: 1

MAJORITY = 155

With those numbers, Andre Arthur holds the balance of power.

But remember, a Speaker must be chosen. And Peter Milliken wants the job again, and he likely will be on a secret ballot. If so, that will reduce the Liberal number to 101.

[Bragi]

28. I'll concede this much...

You're right in that it's possible that IF the Speaker is a Lib, and IF the planets align at some point in the right way around a particular vote, and/or IF illness strike one party more than another on the day of a crucial vote, that Jack and the NDP could accidentally become relevant.

Having said that, it remains the case that the only reliable way to block conservative action in the new Parliament is if the Liberals and the Bloc act in concert.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. "The NDP, who helped elect Harper"

Yup, you're right. How dare the NDP forget its civic duty to drive the woozy Liberals home to Ottawa like a designated driver when they've had a few too many mandates.

[Bassic]

15. Exactly..

and all my peers in Québec who voted for "change" are gonna go "What the fuck? I didn't vote for this!" Just like they did after they elected Charest. God I wish I could smack some peoples heads to force them to think about what the fuck they are doing... :grr:

[V. Kid]

6. No, nothing is diffrent yet, take a look at some of the Emerson...

...threads. A Liberal MP, who claimed the Conservatives were pretty much evil, only to switch to their side two weeks after the election!

[daleo]

7. To me, the issue isn't Emerson as much as it is Harper

He campaigned on a platform of integrity and democratic renewal. But his first actions as PM were to:

- promote someone into cabinet who changed parties 10 days after an election (Emerson).
- promote his unelected campaign manager (his campaign manager!) into the Senate, and then into a powerful cabinet post (Fortier).
- promote an industry lobbyist into the cabinet position that would rule on the very purchases that the person was lobbying for, only 18 months after he was actively lobbying for them (O'Conner).

It is hard to believe that his judgment could be so bad, just two days into the job.

[Telly Savalas]

8. Give Harper a break.

Clearly his positions on integrity and democratic renewal have "evolved".

[Spazito]

9. LOL, perfect!

:toast:

[daleo]

12. Nuanced and pragmatic as well, now.

That will be the editorial in my Canwest paper.

[V. Kid]

14. All is forgiven! ;-)

[V. Kid]

13. True, but I'm also a constituent...

...and think of it this way I didn't vote for nor had any intentions of voting for Emerson, and I'm pretty annoyed. So just think of his campaign workers/volunteers!

So the point I'm trying to make is that it highlights the worst images about politics, I sure hope it doesn't discourage people. This sort of behaviour must be punished, not ignored.

[daleo]

17. Harper and Emerson both come off poorly

Emerson treated his campaign workers about as shabbily as it is possible to do. Harper treated that proportion of his voters that voted for him over "integrity in government" about as shabbily as one could imagine as well.