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SO our leadership convention is really an inner-party conference on who is going to end up becoming Prime Minister. Its kind of fucked. We don't elect our Prime Minister. We elect our local MPs and whoever heads that government takes power. This came to pass basically because the Conservatives, knowing the Liberals were in the middle of a leadership change, thought they could get away passing an action that would remove our subsidies the parties get based on votes (our method of public funding). The way they planned it would pretty much bankrupt every other party except the Conservatives, who would get a lesser cut and get buoyed by the fact that since they're the only right wing party, they make out better with other fundraising. It was a poison pill that Harper thought the other parties would swallow, that they were all in no position to do anything about it. Their bluff was called, they really were able to unite around Harper trying to pull a scheme that would make it impossible for all the opposition to fund future campaigns. It really is kind of messed. Conservative supporters are pissed as hell, either ignorant of the parliamentary system, how it works and that this could happen, or thinking they actually voted for PM and their vote was being erased, or just mad their plot was foiled. I'm more cautious because while the coalition is more left leaning who knows if they can get along the way other countries' coalitions have. Any way you look at it, Canadian politics is all of a sudden exciting again - at least for us. I doubt it made it within the top 15 stories on the evening news, if that. |
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There are 4 political parties, let's call them A B C + D. Party A gets 37% of the votes, the remaining votes are divided amongst B C D. As this is a parliamentary system, those votes = seats in parliament. Although party A only got 37% and a majority of the country didn't vote for them, they have more seats in parliament than any one of the other parties alone, so they "win". Now B, C, and D don't like each other too much, but they REALLY don't like A. So they agree to join together to make a coalition, X. Now joined together group X has 63% of the seats in parliament, so they overthrow A's power and the government becomes theirs. Then group A whines like little bitches. |
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What were you thinking!? You could have been killed! |
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if only. |
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