Functional Parliament after January 23rd?

[lostwong]

I've just started following politics in Canada early last year and I'm becoming more and more disturbed about the Canadian government.

There seems to be so much distrust between each of the parties and their respective leaders that unless there's some sort of majority government will anything get done? It also seems like the parties are more interested in blaming each other for past failures than spending more time in research of detailed and accurate plans for the various platform promises. Has it always been this way and I just never noticed? Or has this election campaign been worse than the ones in the past?

 

[Jay]

Hi, LostWong.

I live in London too.


I think you will find in any democracy the parties vying for power don't trust each other....

Does anything get done in a minority government situation? Sure it does. Some people believe it creates a climate of compromise between parties to get legislation passed.

I do believe most Canadians wish for majority governments though because things get done quicker with less bickering in the house and ideologies aren’t compromised as much and legislation doesn’t get watered down as much. You know what you’re getting up front with a majority government.

I don't think this election has been worse than previous elections....but I'm not an old timer like some of the other posters around here.....

 

[annabattler]

Generally,minority governments serve the needs of more Canadians...political parties are forced to compromise,forced to be more inclusive if they want to maintain power.
I'm not convinced that we really know exactly what legislation will be passed,based on an election campaign.(I'm an angry Ontarioan,who still shudders at what Mike Harris did to our province).
The Bloc adds an extra quirk in our federal system..but their existence is another issue.

 

[TenPenny]

You think the parties don't trust each other? My God, for several years we had two factions of the Liberal government who not only didn't trust each other, they actively hated each other and were focussed on doing what they could to screw each other.

 

[Jay]

Good point, TenPenny.

 

[lostwong]

RE: Functional Parliament

Has there ever been a Canadian minority government where there was at least mutual respect between the parties?

It seems to me that if the people in parliament was a family, it would be classified as an extremely dysfunctional one.