Sticky

So what do you think is going to happen over the next few days.

The Conservative party is the party that is currently governing in Canada.
This party does not enjoy a mojority in the House of Commons, this means that the other three parties that have seats in the House of Commons together out number the seats held by the Conservative party.

Every so often issues come up for vote that are considered confidence votes (i.e. that the house has confidence in the government). In these cases when there is a minority goverment, should they wish, the other parties can vote down the issue and as a result force an election becuase they have shown that teh house (and the people) do not have confidence in the government (i.e. more members of parliament voted against the issue the government was backing than voted for it).

Tonight there will be a Throne Speech. A throne speech is speech given by the Governor General (the Queen's Representative in Canada and Head of State - ya, believe it) laying out the goverments policy (plans for the future). In reality the speech is written by the governing party and the Governor General just reads it.

The Conservative party has stated that any important issues that arise out of the throne speech for voting in the days after the speech will be considered confidence issues. The speech (or policy from the speech) and any policy ammendments put forth by the other parties will be voted on by the house. Because these will be confidence issues there is a chance taht the other parties can take down the government.

Two of the three other parties already stated that even without hearing the speech they will vote against it. They have left it up to the Liberal party to decide what to do (take down the goverment or not).

There are two major issues that the parties are discussing:
- Canada's Role in Afganistan
- Canada's responsibilities with regards to Kyoto

Recent polls are in favour of the Conservative party and the numbers show that they would be close to a majority.

What do you think will happen in the coming days.

I don't think the Conservatives really want an election but if their government is defeated they will be OK with an election.

I think that the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party are glad to vote aginst the goverment and force the Liberals to decide. These two parties will nnot form the government after a new election and it is only a matter of seat numbers to them.

The Liberals are in a though position. Their leadership is weak. Their support is lower than before the last election. They have been forced into a weird position by the Conservatives (who took away most of the Afganistan issue by appointing a Libral led Panel to discuss and provide an opinion on the issue) and the other parties (who forced the decision on the Liberals).

Do I think that the government will be takien down?
I don't think it is in the Liberal Parties interest to do so at this point but becuase they made these issues important to them they allowed the other paries to pin them into a corner that may not be able to come out of witout taking down the government.

The Conservatives have played this so well.

Who said Canadian politics was not exciting?

What are your thoughts?

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Sticky The Stickman