Fear not, a Con Minority is good!

[HEyHEY]

Why? Because Canadians are Liberals at heart. THey are just "Punishing" the Libs right now. What is going to happen is that there will be two years of the Cons being the complete fuckwits they are. Canadians will be reminded of WHY we only elect them on occasion, and the minority will be brought down, and a Liberal government will be formed again. And the Cons will be gone for another two decades.

By the way, How bout that NDP tonight!? PROOF Canadians don't want cons, they just don't want libs.

[SidDithers]

1. It would be nice if the Liberal / NDP total was higher...

than the Cons. Mr. Layton and whoever the future Liberal leader will be can certainly hold Harpo's feet to the fire if that happens.

Sid

[movonne]

2. I'm sorry to say I am not familiar with Canadian politics, could you

tell me what the different parties stand for...which ones are liberal leaning and conservative leaning..

[HEyHEY]

3. psst, there's "The Liberal Party" and "The Conservative party"

But the true lefties are the NDP. :-)

[enigmatic]

17. That's what I keep telling my wife

But she's a Grit at heart:)

[tsuki]

The Tories are conservative, everyone else is liberal, not Liberal.

[tsuki]

4. But y'all watch out for the 24-7 hate machine, Saudstrailan News

Network. Remember that the old Saudi King called for a jihad against the "secular" west, not just the US.

[Lars39]

5. You might want to read this:

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2005/11/29/HarperBush/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x216208

[HEyHEY]

6. I know all about Harper and Bush and the similiarities

What I'm saying is after a year of Harper's shit.... he'll be ousted

[Lars39]

7. Is Fox news still broadcast in Canada?

You'd be surprised how much damage those idgits can do to the population's brains in a year.

[HEyHEY]

8. ALso though, don't forget

The NDP and Libs will have more combined seats

[Cleita]

9. Yeah, that's what we thought.

Be afraid. Our neo-cons cannot complete their plan for global domination with Canada there upsetting the applecart.

I really do hope you can make this just a blip in your history.

[HEyHEY]

12. We have the ability to have the government overthrown

[Art_from_Ark]

29. So you're saying he'll be like Joe Clark?

Or will he be more like Brian Mulroney?

By the way, there's quite an interesting discussion about receent Canadian PMs on this board:

http://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16441

[oscarmitre]

10. But what may happen in Canada may be similar to what happened in

Australia where the (elected) Senate wasn't controlled by the (conservative) Liberal Party and which was able to deny the conservatives much of their more extreme agenda. That was really a stopgap until the Senate was then controlled by the conservatives (I have to use the generic term to avoid confusion) who then began their damaging legislative programme while we watched the sport on tv.

Hopefully that will not be the case in Canada. I'm watching the coverage on CBC now, Harper looks like being in a minority government, which means that the Liberals, the BQ and the NDP may be able to ameliorate his more extreme policies. But that may mean people being more relaxed about voting Conservative at the next federal election.

I know the reasoning behind this result (having spent January and February in Toronto in 2005) but it still seems pointless chucking out an economically effective government and replacing it with a right wing ideologue. Oh well, just have to see how it pans out.

[sandnsea]

11. What's the percentages?

I saw a tally of numbers that I didn't understand. The percentages would be alot more helpful to me at this point. They're going to be spinning it as conservatives overtaking Canada and I'd sure like to be able to say, excuse me but, xx% voted for liberal parties.

[oscarmitre]

14. It's a parliamentary system

which means the party with the most seats in the lower house (Commons) is invited to form government.
As stated above though, they will have to govern with the agreement of the other parties.

[sandnsea]

19. Yeah

Which is why I asked for the percentages. The conservative party may have more seats than either the Liberal or NDP, but it doesn't mean they've got more than both of them together which means Canada hasn't gone suddenly conservative. I'm guessing they didn't even defeat the liberals by that high of a percentage.

[High Plains]

18. In terms of popular vote, it was something like this early tonight:

Conservatives 36%
Liberals 31%
NDP 18%
Bloc Quebecois 9%
Greens 5%
Other, indies 1%

The Bloc's votes all come from Quebec, naturally.

The NDP, Liberals, and Greens make up 54% of the popular vote.

[sandnsea]

23. Thanks so much

It's a damned shame that 36% of the vote get to pretend to be the leaders. I'll be sure and remind people that 54% of Canadians voted liberal, or is it 63% with the Bloc? I read a bit about that vote and sometimes I got the impression conservatives were after that vote, and sometimes under the impression that it would be a liberal vote if not for the Quebec issue. :shrug:

[High Plains]

26. I don't know how the Bloc fits on a left/right spectrum,

since its main issue is Quebec independence. The Conservatives did make some headway in Quebec, but not much.

In terms of Liberal vs. Conservative politics, I suspect that if there were no Bloc Quebecois, Quebec would go mainly Liberal, with some NDP and some Conservatives. But that's just my hunch.

[jim3775]

30. Socially the bloc is very left-wing. n/t

[dusmcj]

13. you're lucky your doofus cycle is shorter than ours. nt

[jim3775]

15. It will also force the Liberal party to modernize and bring in some fresh

faces. I am looking forward to the next Liberal leadership convention.

I love the fact that the NDP got 31 seats, in my consistently Liberal riding it is a tough back and forth fight between NDP and the Liberal. Question period will be fun.

[HEyHEY]

20. May end up[ with more than that still!

[jim3775]

25. NDP down to 29 according to CBC

:(

[enigmatic]

16. Oh yeah

I agree w/ you. The NDP making gains proves your point, I think.

This could have been much, much worse. And the first time Harper fucks up, the no-confidence votes happens..

[flyarm]

21. here are the number chart active from toronto star!

http://cac28.insinc.com/cponline/election2006/elxn_eng.html

[jim3775]

22. I can't believe André "King" Arthur has won in Quebec City

A libertarian nationalist shock radio DJ is now an MP.

[Hippo_Tron]

24. That's what we thought about Bush

We figured that four years of Bush would bring decades of democratic control. Boy were we wrong.

[regnaD kciN]

27. Do you think it'll be even two years?

What is going to happen is that there will be two years of the Cons being the complete fuckwits they are.

A Canadian friend from another list had the following analysis:

The Conservatives don't have the seats to push through their extreme right wing neocon agenda. It'll be 'touch and go' government for the next year. The Cons have a large number of right wing idiots who could go ballistic any day and result in them losing the next election.

I've heard a number of people suggest that a Conservative minority government, combined with a progressive plurality in Commons, was a recipie for a new election within a year.

[enigmatic]

28. absolutely

Joe Clark and Kim Campbell's governments lasted less than a year in the recent past; I'll be truly shocked if we see this one last more than 18 months.

[Art_from_Ark]

32. To be fair, Kim Campbell was just considered a "caretaker"

anyway, wasn't she? If I recall correctly, it's not like she had time to make any major screw-ups, she was basically just warming the PM's seat in the transition from Mulroney to Chretien.

[FreedomAngel82]

31. I'm hearing about it on Malloy now

So you guys are safe from the cons?