Thanks to my insomnia and digital cable at 4am this morning I was watching the Canada AM broadcast from Toronto and tuned in just in time to see their political analysts talking about both the Prime Minister's address and Stephan Dion's. An interesting moment was when the one pointed out that Jack Layton also had to say something and make the same points as Dion, but on behalf of the NDP, and this analyst wondering aloud: does this mean this is how everything would be if there were a coalition? Can they not actually work together, even though they say they can? She raised an interesting point, can these three parties who are so different really work together peacefully for any length of time?
I certainly have no idea. But if they are all constantly trying to be Alpha Male it will quickly turn into a dog fight. And no one wants to see a brawl break out in our parliament, as entertaining as it could be to see the party leaders duke it out.
For those who missed it last night, I am attaching the link to PM Harper's address, and if you continue to watch you can see the CTV analysts break it down. Oh, and you gotta love how both PM Harper and Llyod Robertson refer to the coalition as being unprecedented and having no basis in Canadian history. Right. WW1 is not part of Canadian history.
Harper's Address
And in the interest of fairness Dion's Address (also note how the reporter introducing this says NOTHING about this first, just that it is Dion's reponse.... interesting...)
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2 comments:
Well we won't get to see what this coalition will do for some time now, if ever. Anyways, i think it may be time to call for a republic in Canada because today our governor general decided to suspend parliament, despite the government of Harper not having confidence of the parliament. Two desperate people trying to hang out to their jobs. Stephen Harper probably told her that he would fire her if she did not agree to his demand. In my opinion, we waste too much money paying for a useless figure head who is not qualified to make important decisions for the Nation - Michaelle Jean was not elected, and she has a background in news reporting, not law or politics, which would at least give her bearing to make important decisions. If Canada got rid of the GG [governor general] (ie became a republic), we could use a system like Israel, where the President is generally an elder statesman elected based on credentials, but is in a role similar to our GG (ie spends much of the time on goodwill missions and presides over important parlimentary events).
The sad part of this all, is that now there is no way that any action can be done. We will have to rely on our premiers to steer the economy. Since every day, things seem to get worse, all canadians have been shot in the foot by the suspension of parliament. Although this was caused by the inaction and belligerence of Stephen Harper, he may have done something to help the economy in the time before the budget. Although I do not know enough about economics to fully judge the situation, Canada is one of the only developed nations to not have made a stimulus package for its economy. This indicates to me, that conventional wisdom is that stimulus packages will be important in restoring economies. Indeed, with historical knowledge of the great depression, the governments which acted, were the ones that alleviated the crisis (although WW2 solved it in the end). One can argue legitimately that our finance minister must wait until Obama's economic plan is out, to effectively coordinate our economy with the USA's. But in the meantime, might we start some public works projects or something?
In summary, because of our unqualified head of state, Michael Jean's, and Stephen Harper's unwillingness to lose their jobs, they have created a 2 month period where the government will not be in session, and therefore do nothing, when something done is needed most.
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