Finally we have political parties putting aside their differences and working together. If anyone says that these parties are power hungry, I respectfully tell you that you are wrong. They are taking a huge risk by working together, having to comprise on some policies and possibly being seen as undemocratic. These are not characteristics a party wants to be associated with. They are taking this risk, I believe, for the benefit of Canada. I have never been a fan of Harper, nor of the NDP or Bloc, but Harper has shown poor judgement and will put our country at risk. Frankly the fiscal statement was the icing on the cake. Eliminating the election financing without a debate is undemocratic. It would destroy all parties except 1 and without more than 1 party, you can not have a healthy democracy. Furthermore, changing collective bargaining mid-contract is wrong. It is fair to offer the Public Employees the opportunity to agree to no wage increase in return for no layoffs. But they had to offer it to the employees to agree to it, they can not legislate it. Lets list all the major areas that Harper was wrong:
1. The fiscal update - he played politics instead of putting the country first
2. He recommended buying stocks during the election campaign
3. The GST cut - reducing consumption taxes during a economic boom added inflationary pressures and did nothing for improving Canada's productivity or investment ability. Secondly it did nothing to help middle-lower income Canadians. For most of us, our major expenditures (Shelter, food, child-care) are GST-free. An income tax cut would be more helpful because then we would actually save some money. We are heading into deficit, possibly having to sell assets because of it.
4. He was pro-deregulation of the Canadian Banking system. We are being buffetted from the current global crisis due to our strong regulated system that was not able to invest heavily in risky mortgages.
5. He was pro-Iraq War. If he was PM during the USA's invasion of Iraq, our troops would be there.
If that is not poor judgement, I don't know what is.
The idea that forming a coalition government is unfair is not only ludicrous but wrong. We are a parlimentary system. This is how parliment works. PE but they are doing to
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10 months ago
3 comments:
I agree - this is not just perfectly acceptable, but overdue. I am working on my own post right now and thought I'd have a peek at what my Canadian blog buddies are saying... link coming your way...
Vive le revolucion!
SM> It is interesting and as you state in the last sentence "it is how parliamentary works".
I just hope that NDP and Libs can work together more than a month but I do think that the idea of smacking the Conservatives on the fingers might keep them in check for a while. And the fact that they might have some good ideas about how to turn the things around (or maybe keep it from dopping down really deep).
I agree, I just want to scream when I hear "this is undemocratic!" As long as all involved parties stay more or less within their philosophies, how is this anything but democracy in action? This is the whole thing about minority governments - if the opposition/other parties cooperate, they can take over.
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