Opinions Expressed in "Rants," while informed by Catholic doctrine, are merely the opinions of the author.
At Least Canadian Politics Has Finally Gotten Interesting
Well it’s been an interesting week on the Canadian political front. In fact, I actually found myself tuning in to the National news – can you believe it? – a far cry from the interest generated just over a month ago, when Canada elected its second consecutive minority government, all while we were watching CNN, to see what Obama and Palin had done that day.
Turns out the Prime Minister has a problem on his hands, because the other parties have all decided to gang up on him and form a coalition, and make somebody other than him the Prime Minister. According to the rules of a Parliamentary Democracy, they’re perfectly entitled to do so.
And now we see each side of this debate accusing the other of being undemocratic – Harper is a dictator, Dion is trying to steal power, etc. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
Well, here’s a few facts I feel the need to point out before formulating my own opinion:
-On the one hand, the Conservative Party did win more votes AND more seats than any other party
-On the other hand, the Conservative Party did NOT win more votes or seats than all the other parties PUT TOGETHER, so
-On the one hand, Steven Harper is Prime Minister, even though more Canadians voted against him than voted for him.
-On the other hand, even fewer Canadians voted for the other leaders
-On the one hand, one could say that the NDP joining up with the Liberals is cheating – if they intended to form a coalition, they should have done so before the election, giving Canadians a clear choice
-On the other hand, the NDP and Liberals are relatively close to each other ideologically anyway – if you ask me, their joining together is inevitable at some point
-On the OTHER other hand, the Conservatives are themselves a coalition of the P.C.’s and the Reform party – remember?
-On the one hand, Steven Harper has no one to blame for this crisis but himself – if he wants to form a minority government, he needs to cooperate with other parties – something that he seems unwilling to do – instead he threw his perceived mandate in everyone else’s faces, and tried to dictate to other parties his own agenda
-On the other hand, Stefan Dion is a pip-squeek that no one has any confidence in – this action has only hurt himself and his own party. Any coalition built around that weenie is destined to fail.
-On the one hand, Stephen Harper is accusing the other side of relying on the Bloc – a SEPARATIST party – to accomplish their power grab – so, how can they claim to be representing the best interests of the nation, when one of their power brokers is a separatist?
-On the other hand, the Conservatives themselves have been working with the Bloc to stay in power for the last two years, on numerous occasions
-Here’s an interesting point I heard made on the news last night: do you think those three parties would have attempted their takeover had the bulk of the Conservatives seats been in Quebec, rather than out here in the West? No way!! – the arrogance of the Liberals and NDP is manifest once again, who assume that the West will just take it, again, like we always have.
-Even though the Liberals and NDP might have the legal right to bring down the government, they can’t expect their actions to be viewed as anything but negative out here in the West – we know the only way we westerners will ever have any say in the Federal Government is through a Conservative Government - which is why we ALWAYS vote for them, even though some of their political views are a little sketchy. Maybe the Liberals and NDP should think about that before the next election.
Bottom line: this is BAD TIMING. While the rest of the world rushes their governments to work so they can deal with the worst global financial crises since the great depression, the CANADIAN government is caught in suspended animation, frozen by political infighting nonsense, waiting ‘till January to do anything.
What does all this non-sense prove? – simply put, I’ve said it before – CANADA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. If it were, this would never have been allowed to happen. These turkeys don’t care about the Nation. They care about their own power grab – on all sides of the debate.
So based on the above, my opinion is: they’re all a bunch of jam tarts.
Maybe they should call in Doug Henning to do some transcendental meditation with all of them…