Quote:
Originally Posted by bornagainbiking
I know this is not a simple issue. But the LONE issue right now is to soften the global recession on Canada and work our way thru this. [...] All I hear is anti Harper rhetoric and if you don't like him that is your right.
[...]
So a leader who only got whatever percent lets say 37% is the Prime minister well 50% of Canadian weren't even interested enough to vote.
However; the other parties had a lesser percent so this tactic is null and void as figures never lie but liars figure.
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Actually, 59% of eligible Canadians voted and 41% did not.
There's some indication that new voting strictures reduced turnout, but I haven't yet seen a systematic study of how big the effect was.
Another likely factor in the reduced turnout is the frequency of elections. Parliamentary tradition holds that too many elections are bad for democracy, which is why the GG is encouraged to offer another party a chance to form a government if the PM is defeated soon after an election.
Voters
do not elect the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, or the political parties. Voters
only elect the
House of Commons, a group of elected representatives from each constituency in the country. Canadian voters elect
people, not parties.
The House of Commons represents the public, and the government is directly accountable to the House.
The GG
appoints as Prime Minister that person who enjoys the confidence of a majority of MPs. The Prime Minister, in turn, appoints a Cabinet of Ministers. The Prime Minister and the Cabinet constitute the
government, and they serve at the pleasure of the House of Commons.
The Prime Minister is accountable to the House of Commons (the elected representatives) and must retain the support of a majority of MPs to lead the government. If the party of which he is the leader controls less than half the seats in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister must ensure that his proposed legislation appeals to enough members of other parties to get a majority of votes on confidence motions.
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a "minority government". The government can only survive if it has the support of a majority of MPs. This is why Stephen Harper relied on the Bloc Quebecois (14 times) during the last three years to pass his government's legislation - the Conservative Party did not have enough seats to constitute a majority by itself.
The Conservative Party still does not have enough seats to constitute a majority, so Harper
must appeal to members of other parties if he wants to stay in power.
Two weeks into his new Parliamentary session, Harper introduced a confidence motion on legislation that a majority of MPs oppose. He is
by definition unfit to lead the government any more, because he lost the confidence of the House of Commons.
If you want to blame someone for making Parliament dysfunctional, blame the Prime Minister who is acting as through he is not accountable to the people's representatives in how he runs the government.
A majority of MPs are agreed on the course this country must take to address the global recession and have a plan to put in place immediately. They are cooperating to do what you have identified as the "LONE issue right now" for the government: execute a stimulus program to soften the global economic recession for Canada.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister you are defending took his first opportunity to soften the global recession on Canada and used it instead to make ideological cuts and attack his political opponents.
When the House of Commons tried to hold him accountable for this, he actually suspended the Parliament for nearly two months, a period during which
nothing is getting done to respond to the global crisis.
That's not "anti-Harper rhetoric", it's the cringe-inducing fact of the matter.
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