Coalition FTW

[sabotabby]

I suppose I should be blogging about the interesting turn that Canadian politics have taken in the past few days, but honestly, I've been so bogged down with work that I don't have much more of an analysis than anyone else. My closet Machiavellian appreciates this, though. Of all of the godawful things that the CCRAP party has done, I'm pretty certain that it's the threat against electoral funding that's going to take them down, if anything does.

At any rate, in response to those that argue that the coalition plan is undemocratic, ahahahaha. A first-past-the-post system is undemocratic, if by democracy one means the rule of the people—I mean, the majority of Canadians didn't vote for CCRAP. The majority of Canadians who voted didn't vote for CCRAP. So this power-play is actually pretty democratic, albeit not carried out for particularly selfless reasons.

Anyway, I'm enjoying it immensely, especially if this ends with someone other than Little Bush Jr. as PM.

I did have to look up "prorogue," though.

Comments

[funnel101.livejournal.com]

I was wondering when you were going to post about this. ;p

[sabotabby]

Been a bit busy. :(

Coalition FTW

[(Anonymous)]

Had to look up "prorogue" too. King James tried that in 1685 and look what happened to him.

Re: Coalition FTW

[sabotabby]

OH MY.

[finding-rowan.livejournal.com]

Yup, I was eagerly awaiting your post on this. :D

[sabotabby]

I hope it didn't disappoint. Much.

[finding-rowan.livejournal.com]

No disappointment here.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

Wait, you mean "pro-rogue" doesn't mean you are a member of the thieves guild?

[sabotabby]

That's what I thought too and I got very excited at Harper's admission that he was part of the thieves guild. I mean we all knew it, but yeah. Anyway when I looked it up it turned out to be less interesting.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

If Harper is a member of said guild, does that mean there really is no honor among thieves?

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

Well, I won't tell you what I thought the Queen's Privy Council was until today, except that it involved a lot of pissing.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Our WoW guild was anti-rogue, we had an official "no rogues" policy for a long time, but we broke it, but we still don't like kindly up such dastardly scoundrels. *spits*

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I'll say here what I said in someone else's blog about this:

What gets me about this is all the Cons screaming in newspaper-column-comment entries (I try not to read them, but they are at the bottom of every story and it's a trainwreck moment I. Just. Can't. Avoid.) about how "undemocratic" this power grab is (and yes, I do think it's a power grab at the base of it all, no matter how you want to pick apart their proposals to deal with the economic crisis).

Let's go back about seven weeks; the Conservatives took power as a minority with 38% of the popular vote. What kind of democratic mandate is that? They should have felt morally obligated to share power with the next largest party, the Liberals, who got 26% of the popular vote, in a "Coalition of the Large Interests". Then you'd have a coalition that represented 64% of the popular vote, and 71% of all the seats (143+76= 219 of the 305 seats). But you know that would never happen (nor would it have happened if somehow the roles/parties were somehow reversed).

Just off the top of my head, Italy and Israel are two countries that have coalition governments all the time - they're perhaps not the most stable, but they are far from undemocratic and their governments still manage to function - schools and hospitals do stay open, social welfare systems do still operate, trains do run more or less on time... and in Canada this would be even more so, because we're a federation - all of these vital social and administrative functions are the responsibility of the provinces, who don't really care what party is in power in Ottawa as long as the equalization payments keep flowing.

Your comments about the basic problem with the first-past-the-post system are well taken. Whoever gets even a fraction of the total votes ends up with all the power. It's this that dooms Canada, more often than not, to a regime of regimes that more often than not command neither the majority of popular support nor even the majority of elected representatives.

(Oh, and let's not forget that those BQ representatives, who are being portrayed as home-wrecking psychopaths, were in fact duly elected by large numbers of people exercising their democratic rights in a secret-ballot election. Sounds pretty aboveboard to me. Asking whether a party like the BQ should exist is one question, asking why so many people feel it necessary for it to be formed and continue to exist is another - and one I'm glad I don't have to answer!)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Italy and Israel are two countries that have coalition governments all the time - they're perhaps not the most stable, but they are far from undemocratic and their governments still manage to function - schools and hospitals do stay open, social welfare systems do still operate, trains do run more or less on time

In Italy not so much. It's difficult to figure out who is even supposed to make the trains run on time.

[sabotabby]

(I try not to read them, but they are at the bottom of every story and it's a trainwreck moment I. Just. Can't. Avoid.)

You too, huh? The only time I ever do a non-work internet thing at work is to check my e-mail during breaks, so I end up on the Yahoo!Canada news page a lot.

I think a coalition government could be quite effective here, which is why I support proportional representation.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

The problem with the Bloc though is that their importance is disproportionate to their share of the vote, due to FPTP. Of course, Harper is the top beneficiary of this distortion right now, so he can't complain, although you could claim that Albertans are disproportionally underrepresented.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

The trains in Israel definitely do not run on time. Though that's less the fault of coalition politics than it is of the state's heavy investment in a bloated "security" apparatus.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The thing that really worries me is that a vaguely left of Attila the Hun coalition will come to power in the middle of an economic crisis under the leadership of Chief Dweeb, with no progressive project or program worth a damn. They will fuck up royally and hand power to the Right for a couple of generations.

[sabotabby]

It's possible; it almost makes it worth it for CCRAP to stay in power because they'll for sure fuck up the economic crisis. But then we'll be stuck paying it off like we've been doing in Ontario since the 90s.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

In principle I agree with this coalition and I am happy this is happening, but I have some problems with it, tactically:

1) Why didn't this happen 2 years ago? The parties had a much position to band together back then. Damn Bloc.

2) The Liberals are so weak, Stéphane Dion rather clearly rejected by voters, and now waiting on his party to name his successor... The NDP incompetent enough to invite a Conservative on their caucus' conference call discussing the coalition plan... Duceppe a wild card on Québec... I mean this really looks like a joke to many Canadians, including many people who voted for these parties. The credibility of this government is going to be as weak as Stephen Harper's. David Frum (!) says that whoever "wins" this battle will actually lose it, whether it's Harper pro-roguing Parliament (he'll look like someone who can't take the heat at the first challenge) or the coalition for "crassly" taking power over political funding, making a bumbling, twice-rejected party leader our Prime Minister. (Of course, Harper left them no choice, but now he's backed away from this.)

I think it was Allan Gregg on CBC's political panel last night who was saying Harper could imitate Frank Miller, who actually asked the Lt-Gov'nr to give the opposition a chance to form Government. Of course, that lead the Conservatives nowhere for a while, and even lead to an NDP government, which was a saving grace for the PCs only due to the massive recession at the time. But really, Harper could do the same, and see how far this coalition would go, (not very) and he could have semi-clean hands. Of course, that's not in his blood, and Jim Prentice would try to take his seat, so it's kinda hard.

I have a bad feeling about this.

[sabotabby]

I'm enjoying it for now. You're probably right, though I think with the U.S. shifting back towards the centre we're unlikely to stay hard right here. Though you could be right; you frequently are.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. :I

I'm enjoying it too... Seeing the bully suddenly realize that he can't terrorize his victims anymore.

Yes We Can. hahaha.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Off topic because I don't know crap about CCRAP:

I thought you would be both amused and appalled by this.

[sabotabby]

CCRAP

I may have seen some of that Hello Kitty bling. I may have bought some for someone and almost for myself.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

That's some pretty blingy bling. The cheapest item is $150.

[sabotabby]

The stuff I saw was way cheaper.