Playing Hard To Get
You know, for a guy who claims now is not the time for an election, he sure seems awfully reluctant to actually, you know, do something to avoid said election:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed there would be no backroom deals with the NDP, but it appears the edict even extends to emails.
The Globe and Mail has learned that the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Guy Giorno, has yet to return an email sent to him several days ago by his NDP counterpart.
posted by calgarygrit at
7:00 p.m.
16 Comments:
Why should he?
Layton will pull the same move he did on Martin.
Get a few billion for a pet project, and then pull the plug, but with bragging rights on getting a few billion for your pet projects out of the evil Harper.
Besides, BLOC will support the government,
UNTIL Libs table their confidence motion AFTER these votes.
BLOC already said they will vote against govt on Libs motion.
By
wilson, at 7:09 p.m.
In case you forgot, the Conservatives were voted in with more seats than any other party. You seem to think that Harper should listen to the dumb ideas of Ignatieff and Layton. Canadians didn't vote for Harper to implement Liberal or NDP ideas. They wanted Conservative ideas and that's what he's doing.
I know it's tough being the entitled leader of Canada and not being able to slop at the public trough but you are in the minority the way the seats are broken down.
By
Anonymous, at 9:12 p.m.
Prairie Kid, Harper is "in the minority the way the seats are brown down." The majority of MPs belong to opposition parties. The Harper party does not represent the majority of Canadians. The Cons don't seem to get it through their thick skulls.
By
Alex, at 9:25 p.m.
It's not the Conservatives who can't get it through their heads. It's the Liberals who don't seem to understand the will of Canadians.
You know what Canadians thought of the coalition. And that's what you're advocating.
But hey, if you guys aren't happy with the status quo, vote down the government, unlike the last 26 times you've had a chance to.
By
Anonymous, at 10:14 p.m.
"The Harper party does not represent the majority of Canadians. The Cons don't seem to get it through their thick skulls."
Actually, since 2006, the Harper Con-Bots have won the confidence of the house many, many times - maybe 100 times.
Maybe some thick heads should have this drilled into them:
No single party should pretend they even come close to that. This relative command of parliament deserves some respect because, like it or not, it is the result of an election. The only thing that can come close is a coalition of the Bloc-NDP-Liberals.
Unless you are formally declaring yourselves a coalition, it is entirely improper of any one member of the opposition to speak for the entire opposition. For more than three years, the party that has spoken for the majority of parliament has been the Tory party.
By
Tarkwell Robotico, at 11:06 p.m.
Minority governments need to compromise. Or else we get elections.
That's not Liberal spin, that's just the way our system works.
So if Harper really doesn't want an election, he should compromise. Jack is so desperate, that tossing him a bone (ATM fees, credit cards, whatever) would easily save this government through the Olympics.
By
calgarygrit, at 12:01 a.m.
I'm enjoying this really. For years, literally, the NDP and Bloc have been crying Election! Election! Election!
Finally, they have their first real attempt to force one (Remember, Harper called the 2008 election), thats right their first real chance to force an election now that the Liberals want one too, and BOTH the NDP and Bloc change their mind!
I LOLed.
By
Unknown, at 12:02 a.m.
The Harper party does not represent the majority of Canadians. The Cons don't seem to get it through their thick skulls.
I remember the exact same thing being said of Martin in the pre-Harper days, except the partisan term du jour was "Lieberals" instead of the equally clever "Cons".
By
Robert Vollman, at 12:12 a.m.
'...would easily save this government through the Olympics.'
Not so Calgarygrit.
Harper could throw him a bone, and come the Liberal confidence vote (which follows the EI and ways and means votes),
all 3 opps could precitipate an election.
And then Jack waves around his bone like he won the lottery.
Layton did exactly that to Martin.
Duceppe and Libs have already said they will vote no confidence on the Sept 28 vote.
By
wilson, at 1:02 a.m.
Except that Harper has to prop up Layton too. The CPC gain when the NDP take votes from the LPC.
Harper has to walk a fine line here, because if he does want an election now, he still does not want to accept responsibility for said election, and also does not want to go into an election with the NDP too weak to fight.
If he does not want an election he needs to give the NDP something, which means all he really has to do is NOT put a poison pill into his ways and means motion. That allows Layton to try and spin is as he is not doing a "Dion". However, Harper railed against working with the "socialists", so he cannot appear to be now working with said socialists.
So, either Harper is forcing the election by not giving into some relatively easy and innocuous demands from Layton, or Harper is working with the socialists.
By
Gayle, at 1:26 a.m.
But Layton doesn't want an election. He'd take an excuse to push it back 6-7 months.
By
calgarygrit, at 9:18 a.m.
Yes, but do you think Harper wants to weaken Layton? I think it is in Harper's interest to make Layton look like the "real opposition" in order to take votes away from the LPC.
By
Gayle, at 9:52 a.m.
praire Kid, you speak just like a kid. I think its time you sit back and grow up.
Gayle & calgary grit. I think you are both 100% correct.
By
marie, at 11:10 a.m.
"Minority governments need to compromise. Or else we get elections."
So which is it? Is Harper unwilling to compromise? Or is Harper really just waiting for a Majority so he can implement True Conservative ideas?
You can't have it both ways.
But Compromise is not capitulation, as the Liberals and NDP would suggest. Further, if the Conservatives are to compromise, whose ideas should win out? The Liberals, who hold about 50 fewer seats than the Conservatives? Or the NDP, who hold about 40 fewer seats again? They certainly don't have policies in common, and have proven unwilling to give up their own positions in order to find a moderate view.
By
Paul, at 11:16 a.m.
"But Compromise is not capitulation, as the Liberals and NDP would suggest."
When did they suggest that? Have any examples of the opposition demanding capitulation? Do you have any examples of Harper compromising?
By
Gayle, at 11:30 a.m.
Current Fraser Institute affiliates include a certain two-term premier of Ontario, and a guy who won the vast majority of seats in Alberta twice. That doesn't make her a wingnut, particularly not in Alberta.
Actually, what I detect from our derisive friend is a bit of CNN-itis. Democratic talking points (such as the attempt to dismiss all opposition to Obama as extremism) often work their way up north, even when their application does not make sense (I think this partly explains some of the vitriolic hatred of Harper in some quarters).
In spite of their incipient anti-Americanism (which is actually disdain for flyover states, and applies to much of Canada as well), cosmopolitan lefties are about the most Americanized segment of the Canadian population.
Infected with the polarized perspective of American news (particularly since the rise of the Internet) they equate Canada's conservatives (who are nothing more than a bunch of slippery wets united by a vague sense that Pierre Trudeau was a douche) with America's.
They have no culture and no history, save perhaps the imagined revisionist history of Canada invented by Pearson and Trudeau. There is this notion that Canada is unique because of its healthcare system (virtually every country on the planet has universal healthcare), because of peacekeeping (which we don't do that much any more), and increasingly, because we are more liberal than Americans (although the main reason we have gay marriage is because Canadians are very deferential to the supreme court). Multiculturalism is a supposed fourth pillar, but I don't mention it with the others because it doesn't apply in Quebec. Les Quebecois are kind of foreign-ish so they are allowed to be racist and beastly to their minorities.
Oh and of course all of these pillars of the cosmopolitan left conception of Canada are rooted in relation to the US. God forbid that cosmopolitan types would know anything about the actual big wide world around them.
By
french wedding cat, at 12:16 p.m.
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