Canada not so apathetic anymore

There's something historic happening in Canadian politics right now and it's really stirring up a lot of discussion about democracy. For the benefit of my readers not from Canada, the brief synopsis is this - The governing Conservative party is at risk of being voted out of government due to their minority hold on the House of Commons. In other words, the government has enough seats to form the government, but as a minority, they are at risk of being out-voted on any issue the rest of the parties don't agree with - it's known as a vote of non-confidence. Two of the opposition parties have agreed to form a coalition to out-vote and then (Governor General willing) replace the Conservative government with a coalition of Liberals and NDP members of parliament. In this particular case, the coalition decided to form because they felt the current government wasn't giving the faltering economy enough attention like in other countries.

One argument I keep hearing over and over is that this coalition is undemocratic - that Canadians didn't vote for the other parties to form a government. Except that the reality is that 62% of Canadians did not vote for the governing party. Another reality is that when a minority government loses a vote of non-confidence, the Governor General does indeed have the option of offering the opposition to form a coalition with other parties to replace the government instead of having another election (7 whole weeks after the last one). One reason this has never happened before is that the opposing parties were never able to agree in a coalition so quickly before.

I will go on the record to state that even though I am a died-in-the-wool Liberal, I actually don't think the government needs to do anything drastic to 'fix' our economy. Not yet. So let it be known that I actually agree with the Conservatives on this one. But it doesn't matter what I think. The majority of the members of parliament think they could do a better job - they have lost confidence in the current government. So let them try to do a better job. Canadians will see whether they were full of it or not in time for the next election and if they screwed up, the Conservatives will get the majority government they've been dreaming of.

Another argument I hear is that it's un-Canadian to allow a party like the Bloc Quebecois, whose long-term purpose is to work toward evolving Quebec into a sovereign nation, to cooperate with this coalition. Yet the Conservatives negotiated with the Bloc in years past when preparing to defeat the then governing Liberal party led by Paul Martin. How soon they forget. Also, the Bloc aren't actually 'part of' the coalition, they get no cabinet positions at all. They simply said they would support it for 18 months, because, well - Quebec isn't too thrilled with the current government either and yet they are willing to give the Liberals and NDP parties working together - to offer an alternative for the time being. Whether other Canadians agree with that is beside the point. Quebec is still part of the country and the Bloc were elected to represent the the interests of those people. Even if you discounted the wishes of the Quebec electorate who voted for the Bloc, the Liberals and NDP and Green party still made up 51% of the popular vote.

Back to the Conservatives. Their response to the threat of a non-confidence vote is to ask the Governor General to essentially suspend the government until late January, when the Conservatives plan to offer a new budget. Of course the opposition don't feel that running away from the House is the answer in the current economic environment. Rumour has it that the Conservatives are offering back room deals to try to sway Liberals to the Conservative side of the aisle. Tonight, the Prime Minister appealed to Canadians to calm down and give them a chance to govern. Dude - you're barking up the wrong tree. It's the Members of Parliament across the floor you should be appealing to.

Exciting times ahead. No matter whose side you're on.

Oh - and as a friend of mine said during a recent political discussion - if you didn't bother to vote in this last election, your opinion isn't going to carry a lot of weight.

[Update] The Governor General gave the Conservatives what they wanted - a suspension of the government until January. So we'll have to wait until then to see what happens.