What's the possiblility of a conservative majority?

[Machjo]

Any govt that is propped up or needs a coalition isn't a government that will work for and be a benefit to it's true responsiblity. You and me.

I still disagree. A coalition government helps to restrain government action to what all members of the coalition can agree on, thus restricting government action to what is likely to be more widely acceptable in the general community, and thus more responsive to the wider needs of the community rather than going crazily ideological.

 

[petros]

And this can be done in a timely fashion benefitting you and I before it does them? Or is it more for them and retaining their job another term?

Will you get a second term if the govt fails and you lose your job to their **** ups?

 

[Machjo]

They're likely to be more cautious in a coallition, always awre of the fragility of the coalition, never able to take the coalition for granted As a result, they're more likely to stick to bread and butter issues and worry less about the icing, which would be a good thing.

 

[petros]

Icing? Where the **** is the cake?

 

[Machjo]

Icing? Where the **** is the cake?

maybe that's the problem. With so many majorities in the past, they'd eventually forgotten the cake, just going to the ideological icing. Once we get used to minorities, we're likely to forget about the icing, and start focussing on the cake of pragmatism.

 

[FiveParadox]

5P, let me corect your typo. You meant Conservatives, not conservatives, right.

Indeed, thank you.

 

[Machjo]

So 5P, what's your view of getting more indies into parliament so as to ensure permanent minority parties, forcing them into coalitions to form majorities?

 

[FiveParadox]

Re: Majority Governments

I think that majority governments are healthy for a Westminster system of government because they provide a more stable period, which is more conducive to the Canadian constitutional philosophy of “peace, order and good government”. However, it must be ensured that such a majority government is checked and balanced by the rest of the system. For example, the present Her Majesty’s Government for Canada has governed as though it were a majority (only because the opposition parties have been reluctant to pass honest judgment), but the Conservative Party of Canada has largely been checked and balanced by the Honourable the Senate of Canada (despite whatever anti-Senate members here may suggest, the recorded Debates are more than evident enough that this is true).

So long as the Senate functions as it should, there is a check on the democratic excesses of the House of Commons—so, for the purpose of better government, my recommendation would not be to promote the election of more independent members to the House of Commons, as this would slow progress and cause the Commons to be too divisive to hold the Government to account appropriately (not to mention the fact that Governments would most probably become too confused and fractured themselves to provide a clear agenda to the House).

My recommendation is therefore to change the nature of appointments to the Senate to be experts of particular spheres (for example: doctors, scientists, teachers, and perhaps a restrictive number of positions reserved for partisans so as to steer the Senate’s Government business). With more of the Senate’s membership being non-partisan, I would suggest that we could have a clearly functional House of Commons (with a clear agenda by majority mandate), tempered by experts who would be able to add even more value, research and corrections to legislation than the Senate already does. Plus, with honourable senators being experts on subject matter rather than partisans, they would be more comfortable giving clear opposition to issues notwithstanding the Government of the day. We would have strong opposition when needed, and yet also hold on to the paramountcy of the House of Commons, which is essential for our constitutional conventions to function adequately.

 

[Nuggler]

Just hope people who vote Con, realize they're voting for Reform Alliance, not the ol' Progressive Conservatives.

.........and not give them a majority.

Or, if you're going to give them a majority, find a leader named Adolph to lead the party. May as well go all the way. WTF, eh.

:-(

 

[Liberalman]

Brian Mulroney’s Conservative majority had openness and accountability where the guy did not shy away from questions from the media and all the MPs were trusted to tow the party line.

Compare it to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives where openness and accountability is a pipe dream where he won’t answer any questions from the media and the MPs are muzzled and always under threat of public humiliation like a party faithful who gave money to a Toronto gay event and paid dearly for the deed.

The iron fist of the new Conservative party is creating distrust of many voters and the all to coveted majority is out of reach.

Unfortunately Stephen Harper’s legacy will be broken promises and making the Highway of Heroes a regular event.

In hindsight I respect Stockwell Day because he knew a leader must lead and the inner circle are there to advise and when Stockwell decided to lead the inner circle decided to dump him as a leader.

The Conservative government had many opportunities to be great but decided to pass them up maybe they were too busy praying to God for guidance that they refused to follow

 

[taxslave]

What to do. When it comes to issues of personal liberty I am liberal. However when it comes to money I am of the dictionary definition of conservative.(NOT the same as CPC) and have voted for both parties in the past mostly based on local issues/candidates. For years we had the reform to vote for, not so much to form a government but as a protest against the COns & Libs who are largely viewed as one and the same in the west. Would it be too much to ask for to have a party that had the best interests of their bosses (taxpayers) at heart instead of self gratification and perks for insiders?

 

[pegger]

I consider myself a PC Conservative. I would love a centrist - slightly to the right - party running the government. I had high hopes for the Conservative party - however under Harper it is ANYTHING BUT a right wing - centrist party. It has hard right views under personal freedoms - which I oppose - and "liberal" spending/big government habits - which I also oppose.

AT this point, I would rather a Centrist majority.

 

[Machjo]

I think that majority governments are healthy for a Westminster system of government because they provide a more stable period, which is more conducive to the Canadian constitutional philosophy of “peace, order and good government”. However, it must be ensured that such a majority government is checked and balanced by the rest of the system. For example, the present Her Majesty’s Government for Canada has governed as though it were a majority (only because the opposition parties have been reluctant to pass honest judgment), but the Conservative Party of Canada has largely been checked and balanced by the Honourable the Senate of Canada (despite whatever anti-Senate members here may suggest, the recorded Debates are more than evident enough that this is true).

So long as the Senate functions as it should, there is a check on the democratic excesses of the House of Commons—so, for the purpose of better government, my recommendation would not be to promote the election of more independent members to the House of Commons, as this would slow progress and cause the Commons to be too divisive to hold the Government to account appropriately (not to mention the fact that Governments would most probably become too confused and fractured themselves to provide a clear agenda to the House).

My recommendation is therefore to change the nature of appointments to the Senate to be experts of particular spheres (for example: doctors, scientists, teachers, and perhaps a restrictive number of positions reserved for partisans so as to steer the Senate’s Government business). With more of the Senate’s membership being non-partisan, I would suggest that we could have a clearly functional House of Commons (with a clear agenda by majority mandate), tempered by experts who would be able to add even more value, research and corrections to legislation than the Senate already does. Plus, with honourable senators being experts on subject matter rather than partisans, they would be more comfortable giving clear opposition to issues notwithstanding the Government of the day. We would have strong opposition when needed, and yet also hold on to the paramountcy of the House of Commons, which is essential for our constitutional conventions to function adequately.

So are you suggesting that if I wanted a moderate right party in power, and that the only party on the right with a chance of forming a majority were a Nazi party, that I'd be wise to vote for that party in the hopes that it should form a majority, all in the belief that the Senate would moderate the power of that majority government?

Sure the Constitution woudl keep that party's power in check to a certain degree, but dont' you think that party would be looking for every loophole in the Constitution to push our country as far to the right as our constitution would allow? Not a risk I'd want to take.

Now, to be fair to the CPC, it's not a nazi party by any stretch of the imagination, and my intent above was by no means to imply the same. My point, however, was to take an extreme example to make more obvious the flaw in the assumption that we could trust the Constitution and the Senate alone to keep a majority party in check.

Looking at it that way, while there are things I like about the CPC platform, I don't think I'd trust it as a majority government. Now if we were talking about a coalition comprising the CPC and other independent MPs or, alternately, more than one party, then I would not be so concerned about a concervative majority. But there is no way I'd trust a CPC majority.

 

[L Gilbert]

I think we should ban political parties, let alone let one get a majority.

 

[Machjo]

I think we should ban political parties, let alone let one get a majority.

Non-partisan democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Works in Nunavut.

 

[FiveParadox]

Works in Nunavut.

Yes, perhaps it does—but the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut has only 19 members. It would be much easier to run a consensus style of government with a legislature on that scale than it would be to run such a system with three hundred eight members of the House of Commons. It would also cause the procedures of the House to become chaotic and unruly—members tend to be chosen to speak based on party precedence to make sure that each party, and member, has an appropriate chance to debate issues. Debates would probably run much longer under a consensus style of government—and if restrictions were placed on the length of debate, many members’ (and therefore constituencies’) views would go unheard before the appropriate vote.

I think that parties are an essential evil, but they must be managed properly.

For example, the party leader should not be selected by leadership fora across the nation—rather, a party leader should be selected by the caucus. A leader should have to be receptive to the concerns of one’s caucus—as the present system stands, it’s the other way around. Cuacus members are forced to toe the leader’s opinions, whereas the leader should have to make sure that caucus members are happy, lest he or she be thrown out.

 

[Machjo]

Yes, perhaps it does—but the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut has only 19 members. It would be much easier to run a consensus style of government with a legislature on that scale than it would be to run such a system with three hundred eight members of the House of Commons. It would also cause the procedures of the House to become chaotic and unruly—members tend to be chosen to speak based on party precedence to make sure that each party, and member, has an appropriate chance to debate issues. Debates would probably run much longer under a consensus style of government—and if restrictions were placed on the length of debate, many members’ (and therefore constituencies’) views would go unheard before the appropriate vote.

I think that parties are an essential evil, but they must be managed properly.

For example, the party leader should not be selected by leadership fora across the nation—rather, a party leader should be selected by the caucus. A leader should have to be receptive to the concerns of one’s caucus—as the present system stands, it’s the other way around. Cuacus members are forced to toe the leader’s opinions, whereas the leader should have to make sure that caucus members are happy, lest he or she be thrown out.

Well, then what about decentralization. For example, let's say the federal government were responsible for the military, the police, resource management, currency, and international affairs. Beyond that, it would engage in only those issues that provincial and local governments are simply not logistically equipped to handle, and perhaps with laying out general principles, but no more. Then, we could decentralize the government considerably and have larger constituencies and fewer MPs.

Of course some might argue that this would make it more difficult for poorer members of the community to campaign in such large ridings. One option there could be to make federal politicians elected by local politicians every year, with power even further decentralized, almost like a federation of city states, with much power concentrated at the local level, and the feds dealing exclusively with issues of a truely national scale.

Another option could be to have provincial governments elect candidates to parliament, again with all but the most clearly national of responsibilities would be transfered to the provincial governments, with let's say about a douzen constituencies.

This is just a brainstorm mind you, but maybe it could trigger other ideas.

 

[FiveParadox]

I think the opposite: Provincial governments’ only use is to take care of issues that the federal Government does not have the time or the resources to legislate on.

 

[Machjo]

I think the opposite: Provincial governments’ only use is to take care of issues that the federal Government does not have the time or the resources to legislate on.

So take it you're a centralist?

 

[Machjo]

Wouldn't we have more representation in a more decentralized system, whre the government is closer to the local population, as opposed to hundreds of km's away in Ottawa?

Well, OK, I am in Ottawa right now, but you understand what I mean. For a Victorian, does it make sense to have all the power in Ottawa?