A Federalist Country Demands Parties In Several Provinces, Dump The BQ

[Trex]

All western govts fund political parties. Harper made such a goof. To do an act when you are a minority govt shows Harper is a mediocrity and a second banana. The elephant is the room is the BQ, not to talk about it is a lack of leadership.

So let me get this straight.
You post athread complaining about the BQ and that we need to get rid of it.
I make a post explaining that Harper and the Cons tried to do exactly that.
Which they did.
And you rebut it by saying any minority government that tries to get rid of the BQ is a"goof" and a "banana".
Are you aware that the way the electorate is polling these days we could be facing years and years of minority government both Lib and Con?
Why did you start the thread in the first place if your response to any political party that tries to limit or diminish the BQ is negative?

Trex

 

[Machjo]

To be ideologically free. How dreamy. Canada is an idea, like most countries. So having an ideology to keep Canada unified is perfectly okay. We believe this. Treason against the state can be against the law. There are limits to everything, Wall Street thought they had none but they were wrong.

Interesting viewpoint. As it turns out, just yesterday I'd visited the headquarters of the Assembly of First Nations for the first time to get some particular informaiton I could not find on-line. Sure I could have phoned or e-mailed them, but I had an hour to kill and needed to get out of the office for a change of scenery anyway, so looked up the address and headed out.

On arrival, I'd met with a friendly and helpful lady who said she'd e-mail me the information later. During the course of our converation, she'd mentioned that the Conservative government were trying to force the First Nations to become Canadians, but that the First Nations refuse, it's non-negotiable. Since this was an aside to th econversation and I was runnig out of time, I decided not to ask further questions about it. I'm still not sure of all the details of what she meant, but this is not the first time I've heard similar comments by First Nations, though granted it's the first time I'v heard it from a representative of the Assembly of First Nations face-to-face.

I would be surious to know what percentage of Canada's First Nations hold this view. And how would you sugest we deal with them? Remove their voting rights because they're 'traitors'? You can only be a traitor to your own nation. If they don't consider themselves Canadians, then who defines whether or not they're traitors? In their minds, they might think becoming Canadian would be treason.

Or if removing voting rights isn't engough, do we hang 'em?

Call me a traitor if you like, but honestly, I empathize with their position.

Independents running for political office are okay. But not parties that run in only one province and believe in breaking up Canada.

There's a logical flaw there: independents have no representation outside their own constituency, never mind province.

Even if the BQ were not separatists, they should have to run candidates outside Quebec. Canada is a federalist country, with provinces and the separation of constitutional powers. The opposite of a federalist is not a separatist/sovereigntist, the opposite of a federalist state is a unitary state. A unitary state like France has no provinces, Paris runs all ministries.

So should the independent run himself out of province too?

 

[Machjo]

Seems to me, Turdeau declared martial law once and that didn't stop the FLQ. They kinda faded in the 70s due to lack of public support. What would you suggest we stop the Bloq with?

I remember watching one video in French suggesting that the FLQ may have been a creation of Trudeaus or, at the very least, that Trudeau encouraged it as a means to undermine the reputation of the sovereigntist movement, to give it a bad name and make it look violent. The video had a man claiming to be RCMP who said that Trudeau had given him the order to break the Sovereigntist movement in any way possible; and a woman was claimed to be a spy hired by the RCMP to infiltrate the FLQ and encourage members to bomb mailbozes and such.

Conspiracy theory? Maybe. But interesting none-the-less.

 

[s_lone]

The federal election commission killed the Rhino and other parties some years back, and they ran candidates in several provinces. Yet we cannot rid ourselves of the Bloc Quebecois which runs candidates in only one province. This is nuts.

The existence of the BQ prevents majority gov'ts in Canada which encourages instability. And the BQ is a separatist party. Why do we put up with this?

Why do you put up with this? Because Canada is a democracy. That's all. Any direct and obvious attempt to remove the Bloc would simply enrage Quebec nationalists and the PQ would come back in power strong. Is that what you want?

 

[s_lone]

Yup. It's the ridiculous electoral system and the fact that we are so diverse that we are extremely difficult to appease from one end of the country to the other. What works in the maritimes, may not apply so wqell in the prairies, what works in Nunavut, may not be so good for BC, etc.
The answer? Delegate federal power to the provinces and keep the feds out of those parts. Let the feds deal with stuff they should be dealing with, like foreign relations, standardized nationwide healthcare, federal police, etc.

I vote for you.

 

[Machjo]

I vote for the party first usually and the candidate later.

Even if the candidate is a poodle to the leader?

 

[ironsides]

The federal election commission killed the Rhino and other parties some years back, and they ran candidates in several provinces. Yet we cannot rid ourselves of the Bloc Quebecois which runs candidates in only one province. This is nuts.

The existence of the BQ prevents majority gov'ts in Canada which encourages instability. And the BQ is a separatist party. Why do we put up with this?

I may not be Canadian, but I cannot see how anyone who lives outside of Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Alberta can even have a hope that their votes would count if the top 4 voted as a block. For that matter a unified Ontario and B.C. alone could decide Canada's direction and even block BQ.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

So let me get this straight.
You post athread complaining about the BQ and that we need to get rid of it.
I make a post explaining that Harper and the Cons tried to do exactly that.
Which they did.
And you rebut it by saying any minority government that tries to get rid of the BQ is a"goof" and a "banana".
Are you aware that the way the electorate is polling these days we could be facing years and years of minority government both Lib and Con?
Why did you start the thread in the first place if your response to any political party that tries to limit or diminish the BQ is negative?
Trex

Harper was quite willing to inflict immense collatoral damage on other federalist parties with his misguided funding plan. And his party would have benefitted the most. Scorched earth policies are for losers, sorry. Especially if you are in a minority.

Like Joe Clark he couldn't count very well and got thrashed. Harper likes to portray himself as some kind of brilliant schemer because he doesn't connect to the public. Everyone likes a winner though, but he's not winning these days.

Harper and all federalist parties are at fault for not challenging Quebec separatists, which would appear there is a lack of public support to do this. Our politicians are callow followers. We live in a world of conflict avoidance, which is good only to a point, then it becomes absurd. Harper was sucking up to Quebec in the last election as much as he could, and yet it failed for a few minor comments.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Interesting viewpoint. As it turns out, just yesterday I'd visited the headquarters of the Assembly of First Nations for the first time to get some particular informaiton I could not find on-line. Sure I could have phoned or e-mailed them, but I had an hour to kill and needed to get out of the office for a change of scenery anyway, so looked up the address and headed out.

On arrival, I'd met with a friendly and helpful lady who said she'd e-mail me the information later. During the course of our converation, she'd mentioned that the Conservative government were trying to force the First Nations to become Canadians, but that the First Nations refuse, it's non-negotiable. Since this was an aside to th econversation and I was runnig out of time, I decided not to ask further questions about it. I'm still not sure of all the details of what she meant, but this is not the first time I've heard similar comments by First Nations, though granted it's the first time I'v heard it from a representative of the Assembly of First Nations face-to-face.

I would be surious to know what percentage of Canada's First Nations hold this view. And how would you sugest we deal with them? Remove their voting rights because they're 'traitors'? You can only be a traitor to your own nation. If they don't consider themselves Canadians, then who defines whether or not they're traitors? In their minds, they might think becoming Canadian would be treason.

Or if removing voting rights isn't engough, do we hang 'em?

Call me a traitor if you like, but honestly, I empathize with their position.

There's a logical flaw there: independents have no representation outside their own constituency, never mind province.

So should the independent run himself out of province too?

Independents are not separatists. There is a long tradition of indeps. in parliamentary politics. Indeps have never been a problem of separatism.

Some of you seem to be slaves to "rules" which means to me you lack the reasonableness and flexibility to see a threat when one appears. Well, the politicians didn't see a problem with the BQ either.

Minorities seem to run Canada, and the fear Quebecers would be enraged is evidence of that. And no one wants that. Imagine, people getting upset. Can't have that. No no no no.

Quebec would actually do something and our politicians would work on appeasement and hope the problem would go away. We are taking conflict avoidance to the extreme here. Over and over again the federalist policy is to try to appease Quebec, yet it keeps failing. Isn't that the definition of insanity?

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Even if the candidate is a poodle to the leader?

The party leader signs the candidates papers so he can run in a riding. All candidates are poodles. This is not the case in Britain though.

Sometimes I vote against a party that has been in power for two terms, just to get a change. I'm a swing voter.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

I may not be Canadian, but I cannot see how anyone who lives outside of Ontario, Quebec, B.C. and Alberta can even have a hope that their votes would count if the top 4 voted as a block. For that matter a unified Ontario and B.C. alone could decide Canada's direction and even block BQ.

Provinces in Canada never vote as a bloc, they are all split and have significant regional differences and interests. Votes in most provinces are important.

In pre BQ days, most elections were decided by the bulk of votes in eastern Canada and how BC and some western provinces voted would not prevent a majority govt from being formed.

 

[Trex]

Harper was quite willing to inflict immense collateral damage on other federalist parties with his misguided funding plan. And his party would have benefitted the most. Scorched earth policies are for losers, sorry. Especially if you are in a minority.

Like Joe Clark he couldn't count very well and got thrashed. Harper likes to portray himself as some kind of brilliant schemer because he doesn't connect to the public. Everyone likes a winner though, but he's not winning these days.

Harper and all federalist parties are at fault for not challenging Quebec separatists, which would appear there is a lack of public support to do this. Our politicians are callow followers. We live in a world of conflict avoidance, which is good only to a point, then it becomes absurd. Harper was sucking up to Quebec in the last election as much as he could, and yet it failed for a few minor comments.

The "immense collateral damage" you are talking was simply an attempt to remove tax payer subsidies from federal political parties.
Why should taxpayers be forced to subsidize political parties they do not support or agree with in the first place?
Why not just fund the party of your choice through donations?
And for your information it is funding provided on a per vote received basis which means financially the Conservatives would have lost the most not the least.

Just because you as an individual hate the Federal Conservatives changes nothing in regards to the realities involved in this topic.
Just 7 short months ago Harper and the Conservatives tried to choke off the BQ's main source of funding.
That funding is coming from the taxpayers of the ROC.
The Liberal's and the NDP would have lost a little taxpayer cash but would have gained the seats and ridings the cash starved Bloq would have lost.
That sounds more like common sense than "scorched earth" to me.

Dion decided to leap to aid of the Bloq and join up with the NDP in trying to topple the government of the day.
A political decision was made by the liberal Party of Canada that trying to overthrow the elected government was far more important than cutting off the separatists source of funding.
And now we live with that decision.
If the Conservatives remain a minority there is no chance they will go after the Bloq again in the near future.
Not after what happened last time.

In the next election Iggy and the LPC will be looking to gain votes in Quebec.
And he will get them the only question is, how many?
So Iggy is going to be feverishly trying to buy up votes in Quebec and obviously is going to have to be extremely careful about Quebec's nationalist leanings
So the Liberals are not going to touch the BQ and the separatist topic with a barge pole.

We had a shot at getting rid of the separatists 7 months ago and the Liberals intentionally derailed that plan.
I don't blame Iggy for that.
I think Dion got completely suckered in by Layton who had nothing to loose and everything to gain by toppling the elected government.
And that makes Dion a fool in my book.

Neither the Libs or the Cons are going to go after the Bloq now.
We had a chance and we blew it.
The Bloq is now pretty much safe from external attack.
They will sink or swim on their own merits now.

Trex

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

In order to save space I don't want to quote your whole article Trex.

Parties need money to campaign, Harper wanted to choke them quickly. Had he proposed a five year goal to reduce taxpayer subsidies, then I could have supported something like that. So would many others as it might draw more people into the political system. But no, he had to go in for the kill right away like a rabid badger. That's not good scheming by my book.

Sure it would have hurt the BQ, but also the other parties also. But the BQ and separatism would have come back because this was a tactic that can be overcome. Why couldn't Harper have worked with the other federalist parties to weaken the BQ in other ways?

I don't hate Conservatives, but I think Harper is mediocre. I saw him on TV giving a speech saying "a steady hand is required on the political tiller in these uncertain times."

He was speaking at a produce warehouse. He was then he was asked a question, "What kind of vegetable do you imagine yourself to be?" Blank, freeze, no response. He was totally caught off guard by this innocuous question. A man for uncertain times? Give me a break, he is so programmed and ideologically blinkered he can't adjust.

He can't ad lib or relax, he's on a weird pseudo-religious mission I suppose, but to do what? Are there any good Harper quotes?

He could have answered, "A potato, because I am a meat and potatoes kind of guy." He fumed and no creativity or levity at all was revealed. So I soured on him after that.

 

[petros]

If you don't like le Bloc give **** where **** is due. Mulroney.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Why do you put up with this? Because Canada is a democracy. That's all. Any direct and obvious attempt to remove the Bloc would simply enrage Quebec nationalists and the PQ would come back in power strong. Is that what you want?

So we will allow the rage of separatists to continue in Ottawa with a separatist party to hamper the national govt for who knows how long? We seem to be doing next to nothing to reduce separatist expectations. Their idea is that they can wait as they have time on their side. They only require the right circumstances and independence can be politically launched at any time.

 

[Machjo]

Here's the basic dilema I see in a democracy. If we can restrict what policies a political party may support, we are essentially restricting democracy itself.

If the concern is with taxpayers funding separatism, obviously we can't cut funding to one party just because we don't agree with its ideology. We're not Nazi germany after all. One soution is to cut funding to all parties, and that I could agree with.

If the concern is with legitimizing the party officially, we can't ban one party just because of its ideology. Again, undemocratic. What we could do though is to not legitimize any party and require all candidates to run as independents, and sit as independent MPs. That I could accept. But for the government to dictate what ideologies are acceptable and what ideologies are not is a pretty slippery slope. In fact, that's exactly waht Hitler did. First, he banned the communists, then the socialists, then the liberals, then the conservatives, and finally the other fascist parties themselves.

 

[Francis2004]

Parties need money to campaign, Harper wanted to choke them quickly. Had he proposed a five year goal to reduce taxpayer subsidies, then I could have supported something like that. So would many others as it might draw more people into the political system. But no, he had to go in for the kill right away like a rabid badger. That's not good scheming by my book.

Sure it would have hurt the BQ, but also the other parties also. But the BQ and separatism would have come back because this was a tactic that can be overcome. Why couldn't Harper have worked with the other federalist parties to weaken the BQ in other ways?

Actually IMO this would have helped the BQ cause and probably made them more fiscally stable compared to most other political parties. They rely on a very small base of "loyal" supporters that would have grown and anger would have stirred even higher at the fact their party was trying to be disassembled to the point of having the tradional weak voters turning thier votes away from national parties and supporting the "Quebec cause" just because..

When you play with fire, be careful you don't burn yourself ..

 

[Polygong]

If advocating for scession is treason, then shouldn't the UK have tried all of the Fathers of Confederation for treason?

I'm not a monarchist myself, but if you're going to accuse secessionists of treason, then it's not much of a stretch that you, dumpthemoranchy, are guilty of the same by trying to overthrow the soverign Head of State of Canada.

 

[YukonJack]

"I like minority governments too, but not the way ours is run with a none confidence vote being able to force an election. An elected government must be able to serve out its four or five year term without wasting our money on elections and constant electioneering. Takes too much time away from doing their job. A simple vote on each bill as it comes up would work just fine. Either it passes or it doesn't."

I agree 100% with taxslave.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Here's the basic dilema I see in a democracy. If we can restrict what policies a political party may support, we are essentially restricting democracy itself.

If the concern is with taxpayers funding separatism, obviously we can't cut funding to one party just because we don't agree with its ideology. We're not Nazi germany after all. One soution is to cut funding to all parties, and that I could agree with.

If the concern is with legitimizing the party officially, we can't ban one party just because of its ideology. Again, undemocratic. What we could do though is to not legitimize any party and require all candidates to run as independents, and sit as independent MPs. That I could accept. But for the government to dictate what ideologies are acceptable and what ideologies are not is a pretty slippery slope. In fact, that's exactly waht Hitler did. First, he banned the communists, then the socialists, then the liberals, then the conservatives, and finally the other fascist parties themselves.

Democracy means consent of the governed, the governed can decide on what they want and they try to be reasonable and as fair to as many as possible. A policy of separating from Canada does not have majority support in Quebec nor in Canada and the majority may forbid it and call it treason and destroy if they desire. Democracies have enemies.

It always made me laugh when my sister had a daycare and parents would pick up their kids, the parents would sometimes have talk to their kids for an hour to convince them to leave her house. The kids had great fun there. So my sister would tell me to leave when these parents came to pick up their kids because I would always be laughing at them over these endless discussions. When my father told us kids to leave, we had about ten seconds to move. So I see these parents as Canada and Quebec as the baby. The modern yuppie world is all about marketing and pleasing the customer, so we apply it to politics.

The bigger problem is I can understand sometimes why Quebec would want to separate. You have to ask, why do they want to leave such a rich and prosperous country? Because bland boring guys like Harper offer no genuine reason for Quebeckers to stay. Harper is no fun, and that, right wrong is how they see much of Canada. Canada to them is just a dull chequebook corporate state to milk. The political solution to separatism is crushing it or making it unpopular. Yet we do neither.