[From the diaries by susanhu. Wonderfully clear write-up, Derek. Thank you from a sadly ignorant U.S. neighbor.]
“Battle of Marston Moor, sixteen-forty-four!” our high-school history teacher would chant, grinning in the expectation that we boys would share in his merriment.
For some reason his enthusiasm for history failed to communicate itself, though I have to admit he was right about one point.
Countries are shaped by their history.
In the case of Canada, the country is a product of two events. The first occurred in 1763 when the British, having defeated the French, incorporated the people of New France into British North America. The second took place in 1867 when British North America — or Canada, as it had become — was granted its independence from Britain.
It is the first event that is the more relevant here.
The people of New France became the people of Quebec, and they remain intensively sensitive about their unwilling incorporation into the larger populace.
When it comes to election time, Quebecers have recently favored a party called the Bloc Quebecois — a party which, for obvious reasons, does not exist outside of Quebec.
In the rest of Canada — and, yes, Quebecers really do refer to it as “the rest of Canada” — voters are divided between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party.
When you put Quebec together with “the rest of Canada,” what this means is that no single party now has the hope of forming a majority government.
Whatever the particular issues, it it really this structural problem that brought down the current Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. In Canada as in Britain there are no fixed terms for administrations. A minority government can be brought down any time all the other parties choose to gang up on it.
Whichever party becomes the next “biggest minority,” and so gets to form the new government after the January 2006 election, it is apparent that this structural problem will remain. Nothing can possibly change as a result of this election.
Whichever party becomes the next “biggest minority,” and so gets to form the new government after the January 2006 election…
Is that really how it works? I thought that if there’s no majority, the previous government is given the first opportunity to form a government. So that if the Tories win a plurality, the Liberals still might form a government if they can get the NDP and the Bloc to support them. (Don’t remember where the regulation is, just remembering conversations on dKos from last summer.)
Certainly if the Tories win a minority government, you can’t expect them to get anything truly conservative done—because to do anything they’d have to get the support either of the Liberals or of one of the two social democratic parties.
.. in your assessment.. the prior governing party would by convention have first chance to form the government.. but it doesnt usually do this for strategic reasons — they’ll get harped on as not having the moral authority to lead.
What would likely happen is they would allow the party with more seats to try and get the ‘confidence’ of the House.. in the hope they’d eventually screw up and lose said confidence so that the Governor-General would either call a new election on the advise of that party’s leader (who would be the Prime mInister at this point), or alternately, she could decide if it isnt in the national interest to have an election so soon after the prior one.. the GG would ask the party with the next highest amount of seats to try and form the government.
Sometimes I catch Canadian radio in my car because we’re so close to the border. I’m often surprised at the macho, pro-U.S.-military calls I hear. Or are they just a vocal minority?
Depends on the show and the area you’re close to.
I note that you ignore the NDP in the mix, as they are the #4 party with about 18 members in the House of Commons.
Thanks for posting this. Please keep us informed on what’s going on up north.
Do you see much prospect for the NDP to grow at the expense of the Liberals this time around?
I believe that the head of the CAW (UAW in Canada) is urging its membership to vote Liberal instead of NDP if it looks like a Conservative could win.
I guess my question was more about urban seats or college town seats where the battle is between the Liberals and NDP for the seat. Is there a sense some of those might swing NDP, or are people pretty entrenched in their support for their preferred party?
There are as mnay seats where the NDP is in competition with the Conservatives for the seat as they are in for the Liberals.
Basically… the battle between the Liberals and the NDP will happen in the Toronto area (socially liberal), and the city of Hamilton and Oshawa (strong labour unions and movements there), while the battle between the NDP and the Conservatives will happen in Saskatchewan and the urban areas of BC. (Although to be fair.. BC has a lot of 3 way races.. and in a couple of the Vancouver Island ridings, even the Green Party is in the running.)
I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure out the political landscape here. Sorry.
This is for the question just above.
Well is this Derek from Village Blue fame, wow, first time here and you get bumped to the front page…Good for you and glad you did the write up..
The problem in Canada is a variation of the situation in Great Britain. The Liberals are tainted by the sponsorship scandal. They’ve been in power too long, and Paul Martin’s leadership has been uninspiring. However, anyone looking for an alternative in the Tories quickly runs aground on their right-wing social policies.
Given the circumstances, liberal-minded voters tired of the Liberal Party may well give their votes to the NDP–a nice scenario to contemplate. But another minority government is the likely outcome.
As in Great Britain, real change is unlikely until the current leader of the dominant party–Paul Martin–steps down. A new, charismatic Liberal leader could revitalize the party and give voters something to cheer about.
The downside of parliamentary democracy is frequent elections when no party achieves a clear majority. The upside is that a leader who loses the confidence of the legislature can be forced to call an election–a possibility Americans can only dream of.
I think the big structural problem in Canada, like in Britain, is a parliamentary tyranny that can actually be more complete than the executive tyranny we’re seeing now in the US. The PM controls the caucus and the other ministers. In a majority government, any PM who controls the caucus gets his way in just about everything, like under Thatcher, Blair, and especially the previous Chretien government. The civil service, which should be a countervailing force, can’t do it, and ministers don’t resign on principle much because they don’t want to lose those lucrative special-commission postings and consulting contracts when they retire.
Right now, from what I know of Canada (as an outsider, admittedly), I don’t understand what the devil the Anglophone anti-Liberal parties think they’re doing. I can’t remember the last time they had any effective or presentable leaders to rally public opinion, and this is, to me, why the situation is as Derek describes it.
I’d describe it as a Quebec stranglehold, which is probably what most Westerners, but maybe not Ontarians, would say. If the Liberals get enough seats in Quebec to get a majority, they throw money at Quebec to “keep it in Canada” (the roots of the sponsorship scandal). If they don’t, the Bloc has leverage to extort money from the Liberals. Quebec wins either way, and I haven’t heard that the Bloc is seriously pro-independence these days. It’s just a good ploy.
If the Bloc isn’t entirely cynical, one logical direction would be a Bloc alliance with a Western party, because they both have an interest in decentralizing the country. But they can’t do it on the old Tory base because Mulroney gave away so much of the country in the 80s. And when the Liberals came back into power they grafted their own long-standing corruption onto Mulroney’s new forms of corruption. He killed the Tories as a national party, the Liberals are the only one left but seem hopelessly corrupt, and politically it’s a mess.
But as I understand it, the Canadian economy is in pretty good shape in most places outside of the Ontario car region and the softwood lumbering areas. Martin can easily say these problems aren’t his fault but the Americans’, and he’s been thumbing his nose at bush quite a bit lately so he gains cred there. So he might even come away with a majority. Smooth move there, Harper.
I know some Canadians who used to vote NDP and will never vote that way for the rest of their lives because the provincial NDP governments turned around and shafted them. Like in the US, provincial and national parties are loosely linked and usually the link only hurts, hardly ever helps.
Hi Altoid,
My take is more upbeat than yours. While a majority government is ‘free to do as it pleases’ in a parliamentary government, that freedom is constrained more than your version would suggest. On the other hand, such freedom avoids the gridlock on controversial legislation that one often finds in American politics–think gun control, health care, etc. I find it refreshing that in Canada the government can actually pass legislation and make things happen. If they go too far, the voters will punish them the next time round, and any real wrongdoing can generate a vote of non-confidence and a new election.
The hegemony of the Liberals results from a broad consensus that their policies are best for the country. The Conservatives have marginalized themselves with right-wing social policies that most Canadians don’t favour.
The problems in Canada are the problems of a country where most things work and most people agree.
So . . . who do you like for the Stanley Cup this year? ;^ )