All right, Canadian Government drives me nuts. We are now beginning the run up for our 4th election in 7 years, and the Conservatives will probably get in again, unless Stephen Harper really screws up one of the debates. Why is it so nuts, cause we elect members from 4 different parties, so we never have a true majority government. We have the Bloc Quebecois, who's mandate is to gather enough stuff to eventually vote for Quebec to cecede from the rest of Canada. They only run candidates in Quebec and claim that they are looking out for the interests of Quebec, but truthfully, they are waiting for enough Quebec sentiment to force the 3rd referendum in about 30 years. In reality, they should be tried for treason. We have the NDP, New Democratic Party, these guys are so far left wing, that communism is right of them (a little facetious in that statement, but still), they want more government control than currently exists right now, and they want the increased taxes and everything else to go along with it. They ran Ontario for about 4 years back in the early to mid ninieties and screwed up Onatrio so bad it took another 15 years to recover, then their head of the party joins the Liberals and now claims to be a Liberal. We have the Liberals, (see previous paragraph), who's head of the party lived in the US forever and only came back to Canada to be the head of the Liberals. The liberals are like a wet finger in the wind, they stick their finger up in the air, see which way the wind is blowing and then make their polictical decisions based on that, they are totally populist without any backbone. Then we have the Conservatives, they are the most fiscally responsible, although in the US they would be left of the Democrats on the political spectrum. They are also an apeasement party, partly due to necessity and some of the things I mentioned earlier, trying to keep the most people happy. So there is the four main parties. There is also the Christian Heritage Party, very fundamental, follows the teachings (as they interpret them) from the bible and try to apply that to the land. There is also the green party, I haven't seen many of their policies, but they are the green party because of environmental beliefs, which is fine, but not really grounded in reality. The reason we are having another election now is because if the party in power is a minority party meaning that the total number of representatives from the other parties is greater than the sum of the representatives of the party in power, then that puts them inpower with a minority. Now, the other three parties monitor public opinion and wait in the bushes until the party in power does something unpopular and then they sandbag the party in power, have a vote of non-confidence and force another election. so...Here we go again. And you think you have it bad
I'm pretty impressed you knew about the Saskatchewan Party Rob! they are on the right side of our political spectrum but do a good job running my home province if I do say so myself.
Bob, in the old days, before we had cable TV I used to get the educational stations out of Ontario and they would telecast the Canadian Parlaiment. What a zoo that was! They would scream at each other and interupt each other when they spoke. They always had someone signing the speeches down in the bottom corner of the picture and I really expected her to be flipping the bird to someone. It makes our goofballs in Washington seem kind of tame. Of course a quiet incompetent is no better than a loud incompetent because they are both still incompetent.
Hi Ed That was probaly the infamous "RatPack" of the Liberals, back in the days of Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives. It was led by a few wacko's out of Ontario, there was John Nunziata from Toronto and a few others, but by far the worse was Sheila Copps from Hamilton. Her father was Victor Copps, and Copps Coliseum is named after him. He was so popular in Hamilton, that his name carried her onto federal politics, and then she started playing every card she could do advance herself. She was a woman in politics, so that got her advancement, John Crosbie a conservative from Newfoundland made a statement (pretty funny actually), "Pass the Tequiall Sheila", which got her in a tizzy and got her more "oh poor is me" sympathy. Eventually she made it all the way to deputy Prime Minister, but she wasn't much more than a potty mouth from the streets of Hamilton. My father worked at Stelco and used to laugh as she was making her way up in politics, the boys he worked with in the blast furnaces around Stelco used to tell stories of Sheila, they nicknamed her "Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me", after the old song. They used to say that one of the boys lived in an apartment below her, he would grab a broom handle and rap it off his ceiling (her floor) and she would be down in five minutes. Anyway, yes, televising our politics does increase the level on embarassment, there is very little decorum.
Well Bob, consider US politics as we become so polarized we have a choice between Palin and Pelosi. That's Mama Grizzley and Just Plain Grizzled! I consider myself fairly conservative, but I just don't see anyone out there who is going to beat Obama because they all seem to want to pander to the extreme, extreme right. Personally I don't care if gays get married and abortion is a personal decision. My big worry is that my kids and grandkids are going to have to learn Chinese to survive in this world and I don't see anyone on either side of the aisle that is concerned enough about that to change a damn thing. Sadly that means that your kids and grandkids will probably be faced with the same choices in the Great White North.
Interesting... I consider myself a Libertarian, as well. That's one of the reasons I couldn't vote Republican, were I an American. That party has been highjacked by the religious right, fundamentalist Christians, as their voting base. I can't think of group with more rules to follow than a fundamentalist religious group. I believe in, among other things, a woman's (more correctly in most cases a couples) right to choose whether to continue an unplanned pregnancy. I believe that a person should stand a chance of being elected to a prominent government position, like say the Presidency, without having to profess to believe in God. I believe that liberals are, by nature, far more tolerant and accepting of the differences in culture, beliefs, lifestyles, racial origin, sexual orientation, and on and on than their conservative counterparts. Respecting the liberty of others to choose their course in life is the very root of Libertarianism. In spite of the Republican party claiming to embrace Libertarianism they do anything but. Really...think about it.... Libertarianism a a lot more than just fiscal responsibility.
I think you're right, Ed. They should be teaching Mandarin in our schools. I just learned that the other day, by the way. Two languages in China. Mainland China and Tia won speak Mandarin and Hong Kong speaks Cantonese. Media scrutiny and the public's thirst for scandal has scared anyone with talent away from politics. Your Forefathers wouldn't have survived their microscope.
could not agree with you more fiscal responsibility is certainly a dominant theme in libertarian thought, but so too is jeffersonian democracy............a philosophy where the federal government has greatly constrained powers and the advocation of a strict interpretation of the constitiution is paramount. perhaps most importantly, Jeffersonian democracy calls for state and local governments to safeguard the civil rights citizens and property of citizens for me the personal issues i have with the republican party is the lack of understanding the importance of civil rights - and strangley enough its about the only place where i agree with democrats for me the libertarian party is a perfect balance between the two extremes the best rob "I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone" from the song my life performed by billy joel
