Conservatives win election in Canada

[KitKat]

Well, after months of frigid winter campaigning, all of it came to a close yesterday. The liberals were finally ousted from power after more than 10 years, and a new conservative government came in. The liberals lost much of the popular vote due to a sponsorship scandal that's been plaguing them, and they've been unable to shake the shadow of corruption that's been in many people's minds. For more boring election details and plans of what the conservatives want to do, check out the BBC News article.

But anyways, here are my highlights of the election:

1) Canada has a whole bunch of interesting parties that ran in this federal election including two communist parties, the Communitst Party, the Marxist-Lenninist Party, as well as two separatist parties, the Bloc Quebecois whose goal is for Quebec to gain independence from Canada and the Western Block Party who are trying to achieve independence of western Canada. And let's not forget the Green Party of Canada and the Marijuana Party. Of these parties with wildly differing agendas, the Green Party runs candidates in every riding and gets a significant percentage of the vote although it has never won a seat in parlaiment. The Bloc Quebecois this year got 51 of the 75 seats in Quebec, making them a force to be reckoned with in the new minority government (the conservatives won with 124 seats).

2) It's sad but amusing to see some of the attack ads that have come out over the past few months. The most famous this year being a Liberal ad that says how Conservatives want to put 'soldiers with guns in our cities'. It ends with 'We did not make this up.' The ad was pulled nearly as soon as it first aired because of the outrage it provoked. Click here to watch the ad.

3) If nothing else, politicians give the comedians here quite a bit of material. Making fun of ourselves is one of the things Canadians do best. I'm a huge fan of the Rick Mercer Report, and you should all head over to Rick Mercer's blog to see some of the funniest commentary yet. He's managed to find some prize-winning quotes by our distinguished conservative leaders. I also recommend his blog partway down the page entitled 'Children are the future but beer is now'. You too, could sign the BEER NOT KIDS petition.

[Ero-Fan]

Wow, I'm surprised so many non-main stream parties actually do well in Canada. We have communist blocks on our voting ballets here in the states (sometimes, but most people consider it a joke), but in general, at best we have 3 parties, with one never wining anything but the occasional senate seat. (poor independents)
Gotta love the ads politicians put out. Man, I can't wait for 'Indecission 2008' to start on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Those are always hilarious.
BTW Kit, you happy/sad/could care less about these outcomes?

[masamuneehs]

All of the "campaign promises" that the Conservatives made sounded pretty damn vague... but what else is new? Kit-kat, as I know nothing about our neighbors to the north, might you shine some light on exactly what kinds of reforms the Cons are planning on doing?

And wow, that Quebec group does have a pretty big number of states for a separatist group... That's like the "Free Texas" group getting a good chunk of the legislature (although i would personally vote to let them go and have their own damn nation...)

[Mr Squiggles]

In my humble opinion, the only good thing about this election is that the conservatives have an minority governemt, and not a majority, Which makes me a small minority in Alberta. But yeah, its scary how much support the BQ(bloc quebecois) has, I remember years back when they had the referendum there, and almost succeeded in seperating (even though I was only like 8 at the time and didnt fully understand what was going on).

[Splash!]

i was wishing that the conservative and the NDP seats would total 155 or more. Then maybe we could have seen something cook up between the conservatives and the NDP despite their differences in political opinion. And yes, the Bloc pisses me off!! Why has it even been running in the 'federal' elections over the past years? What do they really have on their agenda apart from seperating quebec. They are not a party that stands for the whole of Canada and its pretty obvious, so why are they even allowed to run is a question that keeps on popping up in my head

[Board of Command]

What's even worse is how the Bloc gets to participate in the candidate debates with the Liberals, Tories and NDP. They have absolutely nothing to contribute to the debate because their agenda is to separate from Canada. Whatever they have to say is totally irrelevant to anyone who's not a separatist. I just don't understand why they let the Bloc participate. It's a total waste of time. They can do better by putting another legitimate party in place of the Bloc, such as Green Party.

[Mr Squiggles]

yeah, the debates go pretty much like this:

sample question: "what do you plan on doing with the health car system in Canada?"
NPD: "put tons of money into it and make hospitals ultra-efficient"
Liberal: "put some more money into it, but nothing too drastic"
Conservatives:"make it private!"
Bloc: "Ummm.... your mom? Quebec rules!!!"

[Deadfire]

Originally posted by: BOARD_of_command
What's even worse is how the Bloc gets to participate in the candidate debates with the Liberals, Tories and NDP. They have absolutely nothing to contribute to the debate because their agenda is to separate from Canada. Whatever they have to say is totally irrelevant to anyone who's not a separatist. I just don't understand why they let the Bloc participate. It's a total waste of time. They can do better by putting another legitimate party in place of the Bloc, such as Green Party.

The Green party is legitimate?

Anyways with only 20 seats difference in the House. the Grits don't need much to block them. Didn't we have a election because this exact same thing happened?. I predict another election with-in a year or so. A minority goverment never works. It never has and has always made Canada worse (during that period)because of it.

And the Cons will not be able to do anything they really promised because of that small difference in seats as well When have you ever seen a Canadian policion ever follow though with their campaign goals?

[Darknodin]

tsk tsk... Bloc is the alternative to NDP here in Quebec. and, as they say, as long as the Bloc stays strong in Ottawa, Quebec will never separate. at any rate, they DID bring up the Adscam and DO speak for Quebec (half of us do not wish for separation, but aside of that everyone is pretty much the same, closer to the left wing. Maybe its because we speak french)

[Mr Squiggles]

It's not because you speak french, but because you butcher it.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img] (my mother's from France and It's my mothertoungue)

And yeah, 10$ says that sometimes soon, we're having another election.

[Board of Command]

Originally posted by: Deadfire
The Green party is legitimate?

Well yeah, they run in every riding. I'm not saying I'm a Green supporter, but if I'm voting I'd much rather watch the Green Party in the debate than the Bloc. There's simply no reason for the Bloc to be there.

Originally posted by: Mr Squiggles
And yeah, 10$ says that sometimes soon, we're having another election.

It will be exactly 397 days from now. I call it.

[Splash!]

Originally posted by: Darknodin
tsk tsk... Bloc is the alternative to NDP here in Quebec. and, as they say, as long as the Bloc stays strong in Ottawa, Quebec will never separate. at any rate, they DID bring up the Adscam and DO speak for Quebec (half of us do not wish for separation, but aside of that everyone is pretty much the same, closer to the left wing. Maybe its because we speak french)

yet, they are a SEPERATIST party, they are just out of place in federal politics. A party can still speak for quebec and at the same time care about the rest of canada. I mean, look at the name, BLOC QUEBECOIS!!! They are not Canadian!! So i am assuming that hypothetically, if the bloc were to become the government of canada [pretty retarded even as a hypothesis], the rest of us would be kicked out of Canada, or rather, Canada would become Quebec and the rest would just be unwanted territory

[Carnage]

Originally posted by: Ero-Fan
Wow, I'm surprised so many non-main stream parties actually do well in Canada. We have communist blocks on our voting ballets here in the states (sometimes, but most people consider it a joke), but in general, at best we have 3 parties, with one never wining anything but the occasional senate seat. (poor independents)
Gotta love the ads politicians put out. Man, I can't wait for 'Indecission 2008' to start on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Those are always hilarious.
BTW Kit, you happy/sad/could care less about these outcomes?

ZOMG. YOu watch the Daily Show as well? THat IS THE BEST SHOW!

I think we should have a smart and caring dictator. But unfortuantly that will never happen[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

[KitKat]

masamuneehs, as with any election, it is hard to tell which promises a party will live up to. Because this is a minority government though, there should be more accountability and the parties will be forced to work together more. I've only just given myself a crash course in Canadian politics during the previous few months so that I'd be able to decide how to vote. At any rate, I think there's a very good chance that the conservatives will make good on their promises to cut GST since it was one of their biggest election issues. I also think that we can expect to see more funding to the military, and more cooperative ventures with the US. Don't expect to see any radical social reforms though. The party is not only financially conservative, but conservative in their social policies (see my rant below in the next paragraph). Really, the way it stands now it's anyone's game. The determining factors will be which parties ally with each other on certain issues.

Ero-Fan, to be honest, I guess I'd have to say I'm quite apprehensive. The conservatives, out of all the parties, are the only ones who haven't committed to keeping Canada on track to live up to its foreign aid committments that we keep falling short on. They also don't plan to hold Canada to the Kyoto protocol. I guess to Stephen Harper, having more money for our businesses is more important than making them cut greenhouse gas emissions. I guess he figures he won't be around anymore when global warming starts to wreak havoc on our country due to our emission levels (I can't quite remember it clearly, but I remember seeing a graph depicting Canada's emission levels over the past decade and they are continually rising). I have other issues with the Tories, but those are the most greivous to me. My friend and I had election night shots to mourn the death of Canadian government.

It seems to me that there is not only a distinct split in rural vs urban voting patterns, but also between age groups too. Most people I know who are within my age group strongly support the NDP or the Green party. Liberal and Conservative supporters are more often older people. It makes me wonder how the government will change as my generation gets older, and more of the previous generation die off. I dunno, maybe some of the other Canadians here will have some thoughts on this.

[6Zabuza9]

best party is the marijuana party!! but in bc we're not allowed to vote for that party. my parents voted for convervatives.

[Darknodin]

1. French is Quebec is the same as International French with minor variations. There are accents and of course, which differ greatly from place to place. the same can be said from France. the few times I was there i heard all sorts of dialects, some of which i could hardly understand.
2. I agree that the Bloc's legitimity in Ottawa is questionable, or even unwanted from your point of view, but the fact is that a great portion of quebecers think they should be there. My position on this is, whether or not you are federalist or separatist, they will vote towards thing that most quebecers want. I can say this another way. There existence in the Federal Government with their goal of separating the province from Canada makes no sense. on the other hand, this has side effects which are beneficial ( i think for more people than just quebecers).
I'm not partisan or anything. I'm just saying one must see past the primary objective of a party when it is evident that this party will not actually be able to fulfill this primary objective. For separatists (and federalists too i guess), the BQ is a barometer for checking if the population is willing to vote yes in another Referendum. federal elections were kind of a practice referendum, but they had 40% of the votes, good to have the most of the seats in Quebec but not good enough to secede.

[Splash!]

Originally posted by: Darknodin
2. I agree that the Bloc's legitimity in Ottawa is questionable, or even unwanted from your point of view, but the fact is that a great portion of quebecers think they should be there. My position on this is, whether or not you are federalist or separatist, they will vote towards thing that most quebecers want.

But that defeats the purpose of a federal government. Also, we have provincial governments to see to particular provinces. The policies of bloc are not suited to be applied at a federal level, hence they need to reform their policies. A party focusing on one province need not be a part of the Federal Government. If all other provinces started doing the same thing, the whole system would be in shambles. Quebecers supporting the bloc is not enough reason to consider them a federal political party. After all, if another party were to emerge that only focused on the policies of a particular province, i am sure that party would be supported by the people of those provinces but would that be enough reason to continue to let them exist

[Darknodin]

I think, the only reason to let a party exist is whether or not people vote for them .i think they need to have at least 1 mp and even If they don't, they simply aren't considered official (loose some subventions). So, as long as people vote for it, the BQ will exist (well unless they decide to disband themselves for some reason). Also, only pan-Canadian parties can win, and so even if EVERY province and territories would have a BQ style party. its a question of numbers. (BQ had 40% of ONE province, and even in their best attempts, never had 50%)

[Board of Command]

The problem is that the Bloc holds about 50 seats in Parliament. That's crazy! That's more than double what the NDP has. The Bloc has nothing to contribute to this country, and by sitting in their 50 seats, they're using up seats that could be held by someone with a more appropriate agenda, be it Liberals, Tories or NDP. A separatist party holding 50 seats in parliament is simply obscene and should not happen.

[Dug88]

Personally I think it's time that we had someone like the NDP in rather than what has been happening. If the Conservatives were not a minority government Canada would be a pretty scary place to live. We need an actual left wing government in Canada. The majority of Canadians are not upper class or business owners and yet the Conservatives were still elected. People need to stop believing everything they see on the news and read in the newspaper because thats what wins elections. For example during the last B.C. provincial election the Marijuana Party had 40% of the popular vote and after that came out on the news there was absolutely no coverage of them anymore on t.v. Canada's system of government was created 100's of years ago its time that a new form of government is made or else all we're going to end up with is these right wing governments that are damaging us.