Bring on the Coalition!

So much to post about! First, a note that World AIDS day was on Monday December 1. I will try to post more about this in the next couple of days but the political excitement gets priority in this post.

Anyone who know me well, or who spoke with me at all in the weeks leading up to the federal election in October, knows that I am not a fan of the Conservative Party of Canada. That may be putting it a little mildly. For many reasons I have disagreed with their policies and approaches in the past. I have held Prime Minister Harper in a certain amount of distain and looked at his policies with distrust. But never before have I felt such anger towards the Conservatives as I have in the past week.

Since the news broke about the Liberals and NDP forming a coalition with support from the Bloc Quebecois the Conservatives have been scrambling to hold on to power. They are not scrambling to defend their policies, nor are they trying to come out with new policies. Not really, and not as a priority. This became obvious in the Prime Minister’s Address to the Nation last night. Instead they are scrambling to destroy and discredit. Typical politics you may say, and maybe it is, but the lies and tactics being used to cast suspicion on the coalition and on the parties forming it make me beyond angry. The way in which the Conservative propaganda is confusing the issues has me yelling at the radio/tv/computer so that those around me begin to question my sanity.

Most Canadians don't understand their own political system. We get so much information about the American system that a lot of people assume ours works somehow in a similar way. It doesn't. But this confusion and ignorance (sorry, harsh word but it is) has allowed the Conservatives to make accusations and that are unfounded and untrue but many people are accepting it as truth.

First of all, the Harper has called the coalition 'undemocratic' and 'illegitimate.' It is neither. Conservatives talk about their mandate to govern given to them by the voters. This is not how it works. We live in a Parliamentary Democracy. This means we elect members of parliament for our ridings and these members form the House. We do not elect a leader and if you vote with the leader in mind that is your issue. That is not how our system was designed. You elect your representative, the person who is supposed to represent your riding’s interests. The only mandate given is to individual MPs, not to any government. The Parliament forms the government - the government is not elected.

So when Prime Minister Harper talks about the mandate given to him by the Canadian People he is misrepresenting our system and how it works. The only people to give him a mandate are the members of his own constituency in Calgary. My own riding, despite my vote, went Conservative Party this time around. So my member of parliament is Conservative. He has the mandate of our riding to represent us as a member of the Conservative Party. That is it.

The second thing that Harper has been doing is over emphasizing the role of the Bloc in this coalition. He uses the word “Separatist” over and over. He is trying to play on the fear of English Canadians, especially in the west, and in the process is further strengthening the divide between East and West and between Francophone and Anglophone in our country. He seems to forget that the Bloc is a legitimate party who represents the votes of thousands of Canadians. He is also misrepresenting the nature of the relationship between the Bloc and the Coalition in order to spread fear. The propaganda is full of fear-mongering and divisive language.

The Bloc is not a part of the coalition. Thankfully the media is pointing out this misrepresentation but this does not stop the Conservatives from spouting off about a deal with the Devil and getting into bed with Separatists. The Coalition is between the Liberal Party and the NDP. This means that the Liberals and the NDP will make the decisions. The cabinet will be made up of members from these two parties. The Liberals and the NDP will fill the seats on the government side of the House. The Bloc will not have a seat in cabinet. They will not be on the government side of the House. No Senate seats have been promised and the Bloc will not have anymore power than it does now. All the Bloc has done is promised not to bring down the government in a vote of confidence for the next 18 months. This means that if the coalition is allowed to go forward and govern the Bloc will vote along with the coalition on the budget and other major pieces of legislation. This lends stability to the government and allows the Parliament to work on the business of the country. The Bloc can, and probably will, vote down other bills put forward in the House. The Conservatives have been quick to make accusations and call names but it has come out that they have proposed similar deals with the Bloc in 2000 and in 2006. I guess it was OK to make a deal with the devil when it was to their benefit, but now that it threatens their hold on power it is equal to treason or sedition.

Now, in about ten minutes, Prime Minister Harper is going to meet with the Governor General, presumably to ask for the Parliament to be prorogued. This essentially means that Parliament would be suspended but not dissolved until near the end of January. This would allow Harper to avoid the vote of non-confidence on Monday that would topple the government but it also means that nothing can get done. Nothing can be passed; no action can be taken. In “these tough economic times” to borrow a phrase from Opera, we can’t have a parliament with their hands tied. I would rather go back to the polls than have the parliament take what is basically an extended break. I hope the GG will go against the norm and not listen to the advice of the Prime Minister. He needs to either prove he has the confidence of the House or let someone who does go about the business of governing.