Well I ranted a little yesterday about the whole coalition thing going down in Canadian federal politics. I thought I'd throw out a little update: the Governor General Michaëlle Jean (a Liberal appointee) has suspended parliament until January 26th, when the governing Conservatives will present a budget, as requested.
The budget will be a confidence vote (as always), and if the Liberals, NDP and Bloc actually disagree with the content of an actual budget and not just an economic statement, then I fully support them voting against it. They'd better have good reason though. Personally, I don't think the Liberals should be trying to defeat anything when they lost so many seats and have a party leadership convention coming so soon.
Follow-up: According to statistics cited by the Globe and Mail, I'm not in a minority in my thinking either:
a majority (68%) of Canadians from every part of the country (including 55% in Quebec), believe that Parliament should be ended now, but the Harper Conservatives remain in power until the government is possibly defeated by the coalition in January, 2009.
They continue saying that if the Governor General had decided not to accept Harper's request, then:
the majority (56%) believe the Governor General should have dissolved Parliament and initiated an election rather than accepting the proposal from the newly formed coalition [...] to form the government (38%).
Some more CBC coverage of the issues:
- An excellent overview of the issues for Americans: Dear neighbour, about what's going on in Canada
- Some of the debate leading up to this: PM dares Dion to face voters with coalition plan
Feel free to suggest others in the comments below.
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