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What is going in Canada, the short version
Dec. 4th, 2008 09:53 amIn America, you go to the polls, and elect everyone from coroner to President. Most countries take a more stablising approach. You elect your local representative to government, and they look after the rest.
In the Westminster system of government, used by Australia, Canada and other nations of note, the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament gets to be Prime Minister, but that person is not the head of state (executive branch), they are the head of government (the legislative branch, if you were paying attention in your civics classes). The head of state is technically the queen, represented in her beloved Canada/Australia by the governor general, who basically has the role of benevolent dictator, and leaves the running of the country up to parliament, unless they ask her to get involved.
Stephen Harper, a former computer programmer from Alberta, is the leader of the Canadian Conservative Party (or, Tories for short). The Tories have the largest number of seats of any single party, both in the current parliament, and the previous one. This means he gets to be Prime Minister. Except, it isn't a majority government, meaning that they have less than half of the number of seats in parliament. Which is fine, except.. political parties also get to form coalitions if they want, and if their numbers add up to one larger than that of the party with the simple largest number of seats, the leader of the coalition gets to run the show. This is what is happening in Canada right now.
Two other (mostly) similarly politically aligned parties, the Liberal party, and the New Democrat Party (NDP) have put their thinking hats on and worked out that if they formed a coalition with the Bloc Quebecois, they would have 20 more seats than the Tories, meaning the leader of their coalition (in this case, the Liberal Party's Stepháne Dion) should get to be Prime Minister.
Except it isn't that simple, since it doesn't happen magically, the current PM first has to lose a vote of no confidence. Then the Governor General has to approve the new government, and the Prime Minister recommends the appointment of the current Governor General, and can conceptually recommend that she be fired. There are also a number of other options at his disposal to head off this usurpation of his role as PM, that may or may not work.
The Prime Minister can ask the Governor General to prorogue parliament, basically send it into recess so that it can't run a vote of no confidence against him, but again, she doesn't have to listen to this request. Ok, technically the law of the land says she does, but it has been established by the high court of Canada that her official powers, as granted by letters patent of the crown of England, cannot be bound by laws passed in Canada. So basically she doesn't have to.
The big thing working in the Tories favour is that the coalition includes the Bloc Quebecois. So you have a bunch of Quebec separatists halping to run the country, which I'm sure doesn't fill the hearts of the rest of Canada with joy and a feeling of security. But hey, it's not like certain members of the current cabinet tried that 4 years ago. Oops.
The PM is also running a PR campaign against it, talking about it being against the will of the people (Sorry Stephen, the will of the people is for their local representative to be elected, what happens next in forming government is out of their hands, and is a result of the combined will of people).
So what happens next? We'll see. There's any number of outcomes, including this Worst Case Scenario. I don't honestly know what will happen, but I'm pretty sure it won't be that worst case one. This CBC page has a bit of an exploration on possible outcomes.
In the Westminster system of government, used by Australia, Canada and other nations of note, the leader of the party with the most seats in parliament gets to be Prime Minister, but that person is not the head of state (executive branch), they are the head of government (the legislative branch, if you were paying attention in your civics classes). The head of state is technically the queen, represented in her beloved Canada/Australia by the governor general, who basically has the role of benevolent dictator, and leaves the running of the country up to parliament, unless they ask her to get involved.
Stephen Harper, a former computer programmer from Alberta, is the leader of the Canadian Conservative Party (or, Tories for short). The Tories have the largest number of seats of any single party, both in the current parliament, and the previous one. This means he gets to be Prime Minister. Except, it isn't a majority government, meaning that they have less than half of the number of seats in parliament. Which is fine, except.. political parties also get to form coalitions if they want, and if their numbers add up to one larger than that of the party with the simple largest number of seats, the leader of the coalition gets to run the show. This is what is happening in Canada right now.
Two other (mostly) similarly politically aligned parties, the Liberal party, and the New Democrat Party (NDP) have put their thinking hats on and worked out that if they formed a coalition with the Bloc Quebecois, they would have 20 more seats than the Tories, meaning the leader of their coalition (in this case, the Liberal Party's Stepháne Dion) should get to be Prime Minister.
Except it isn't that simple, since it doesn't happen magically, the current PM first has to lose a vote of no confidence. Then the Governor General has to approve the new government, and the Prime Minister recommends the appointment of the current Governor General, and can conceptually recommend that she be fired. There are also a number of other options at his disposal to head off this usurpation of his role as PM, that may or may not work.
The Prime Minister can ask the Governor General to prorogue parliament, basically send it into recess so that it can't run a vote of no confidence against him, but again, she doesn't have to listen to this request. Ok, technically the law of the land says she does, but it has been established by the high court of Canada that her official powers, as granted by letters patent of the crown of England, cannot be bound by laws passed in Canada. So basically she doesn't have to.
The big thing working in the Tories favour is that the coalition includes the Bloc Quebecois. So you have a bunch of Quebec separatists halping to run the country, which I'm sure doesn't fill the hearts of the rest of Canada with joy and a feeling of security. But hey, it's not like certain members of the current cabinet tried that 4 years ago. Oops.
The PM is also running a PR campaign against it, talking about it being against the will of the people (Sorry Stephen, the will of the people is for their local representative to be elected, what happens next in forming government is out of their hands, and is a result of the combined will of people).
So what happens next? We'll see. There's any number of outcomes, including this Worst Case Scenario. I don't honestly know what will happen, but I'm pretty sure it won't be that worst case one. This CBC page has a bit of an exploration on possible outcomes.
