Comments on: Coalition myths

By: Jean Naimard

Jean Naimard — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:21:49 +0000

The root problem of all this “mess” is the very simple and obvious fact that Québec does not see anything appealing coming from the canadian parties. The cons are mad-dog right-wing rednecks, the grits are clueless centralizators who see nothing wrong in infringing the Constitution, the NDP are socialists that are clueless about the fact that different people have different outlook on society (never mind that they are vastly more centralizators than the grits) — and the tories are dead, dead as “he’s dead, Jim!”.

The liberals have been burned since 1981 (thanks to Trudeau’s «nuit des longs couteaux»), and the conservatives since 1989 (after failing to honestly have Canada accept to have more constitutionally acceptable terms for Québec).

We have been solidly voting Bloc for 15 years ever since, and that big bloc of 50ish MPs missing from the balance of all those parties have finally started to take it’s toll on the federal parliament. For the third time in a row, no party was able to grab the power in the Commons.

No canadian party will propose anything acceptable to us, because canada thinks that what is good for us is a loss for them. Hearing the Québec bashers hardly dispells that notion.

And after that, people still wonder why we want to “separate”…

By: Pamplemousse

Pamplemousse — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:05:39 +0000

Thank you for writing this.

Now I will need to send it to all my friends and relatives out in Alberta.

By: Frog

Frog — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:17:21 +0000

The Liberals are not left of center. The are neo-liberal on economics, like harper, and hawkish on foreign policy, but not as much as Harper. A green policy, which is only seen as leftist by the extreme right stances of the American neo-cons doesn't make a party left of center. If the Liberals ever bad mouth the quasi-capitalist system that panders to wealth with intent to change it, then by all means let me know. The NDP aren't even lefist. Their policies are handouts. That's not leftist, that's a welfare state. The mocked by it's opposition.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:16:29 +0000

Very well articulated. Unfortunately the misconceptions about the workings of the Westminster parliamentary system are pretty well engrained. Hopefully you can enlighten a few. The premise of the Liberal/NDP coalition is to provide a more developed economic intervention than the one the Conservatives propose. Here's my beef, though: the only parties who have laid out a plan (as far as I'm aware) are the Tories and... the Bloc. The Liberals and New Democrats have spent the past few days behind doors negotiating who will go where, but not what they'll do that will be any different (let alone better) than the Conservatives. My heart of hearts trusts the Libs and New Democrats more than the Tories, and demystification of the evils of a coalition government can be good for the nation's politics (just as demystification of the evils of a minority government has been), but it's a brazen position to overturn a government on one policy when you have no alternative to propose.

By: Stephane Michaud

Stephane Michaud — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:47:20 +0000

Thank you so much for this post, I just can believe how much BS is being said in the house of commun right now, from all parties...