What
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Canada Boring? I Think Not · As noted earlier, we’ve got a minority government embroiled in a nasty scandal and an Opposition that sniffs blood in the water. So, what happened? The NDP, our left-wing party, agreed to prop up the Liberal government on condition that they get all sorts of social-democratic goodies into the Federal budget. But that’s not quite enough votes to do the job, and the Loyal Opposition, currently the Conservatives (Tories) and BQ (Québec separatists), were going to try to vote down the budget and precipitate an election. So the Liberals went out and bought themselves another vote, bribing prominent Tory billionairess bimbo Belinda Stronach away to the Liberal side with a plummy cabinet job. That still wasn’t quite enough; vote-counters came up with 151 solid votes on the Government side, 152 against, and maverick Independent MP Chuck Cadman sitting on the fence. Well, the vote happened this afternoon and nobody knew what was going to happen up until the second they called Chuck’s name; he stood up to vote with the Government, producing a tie, which due to parliamentary arcana that need not concern us is a government win. Bedlam erupted. I’m irritated because I wanted an election now, but I think the result is probably fair because near as I can tell a slight majority of the citizens would rather wait a few more months. You couldn’t make this stuff up. [Update: I’m getting lots of push-back on “bimbo”.] ...
The Martin Government Is Toast · One the one hand, you’ve got a minority government that’s just been caught laundering a million bucks through corrupt ad agencies back into its own coffers. On the other hand, you’ve got a weak and divided opposition; I for one am unconvinced they’d govern better. Doesn’t matter; when a government acts this badly it just has to be spanked, pour encourager les autres. Go on Stephen, Jack, and Gilles, pull the damn trigger already and let’s have an election and give the Liberals a dose of opposition. It’ll make us all feel better, and our politics are strongly enough centre-loaded that it’ll be hard for the next government to do too much damage. It’ll probably be another minority government anyhow, which is probably a good thing at this stage.
