The great tides of history...

[felis_ultharus]

So our parliament is going to vote sometime between May 6 and May 18 -- a non-confidence vote. At this point, 154 are voting against a new election, 153 are voting in favour of a new election, and one guy keeps flip-flopping. Actually, I know one of my first two numbers is off by one, but I'm not sure which (there are 307 members right now, not 308).

So it's close. And given that some people are always off on official business, sick leave, bereavement, etc, a mere accident of fate could swing the vote either way.

If the government survives, this non-confidence vote will become a simple footnote in the history books. If it falls, then we could be in real trouble.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper must be a pool player. He thinks he has every ball lined up behind (very white) one. He's also (switching my metaphors) a Trojan Horse, which we shall have to imagine is capable of playing pool with its wooden hooves for these two metaphors to work.

But I digress.

Harper has been pretending to be a fiscal conservative for ages, and hiding the fact that he's an evangelical Christian. He's been doing this to make himself palatable to the Canadian public.

He wants to capitalize on the fury that the Liberals are (*gasp*) involved in shady deals to force his victory. Leaving aside for a minute that our prime minister seems to have been more asleep at the guardpost rather than commiting the theft, and also leaving aside that the Liberals have been using the Canadian government as a pipeline to their favourite corporations -- quite legally and openly -- for ages, Stephen Harper's evils go far beyond some lost cash.

The man is the most bigoted potential Prime Minister since Mackenzie Bowell waddled from total obscurity to near-total obscurity as Canada's fifth Prime Minister on a policy of no rights for Catholics. He would kill gay marriage, invoking the notwithstanding clause; he would butcher social services like healthcare and welfare through cut provincial transfers, and he would bring us closer in line with American foreign policy. The man is a walking disaster.

And unfortunately, Canadians have had a marked tendency lately to show our disastisfaction with the lesser of two evils by voting for the greater. We could call this Gordon-Campbell/Jean-Charest syndrome. If we hand this man majority control of the country, there might not be much we can salvage afterwards.

And this the worst time for an election. Not only would having an election now postpone -- or kill -- the gay marriage bill, it would cancel the long-awaited Innu deal, plus all the great measures Layton got added to the budget in exchange for cooperation (Spending "more federal money on the environment, public transit, affordable housing, post-secondary education and foreign aid" and doing away with tax cuts for the rich was Linda McQuaig's list)

Ultimately, if there is an election, we're up against Canada's dutifully obedient right-wing media. The Canadian voters have always shown more sanity than the pundits and pollsters, but let's hope we can keep it up in a barrage of propaganda and false information.

Let's hope it doesn't come to an election in the first place.

I realize that among my Canadian friends, I'm mostly preaching to the perverted ... er, converted. But we have to do something to stem the growing Conservative tide, and battle the arguments of anything-but-Martin-even-Harper crowd.

Any suggestions?

There. One political rant. Maybe I can replace Rex Murphy, who's clearly gone insane this week.

Comments

[foi-nefaste.livejournal.com]

One very reasonable political rant, read and appreciated. We've got to get together sometime and rant politics - it could be... well, intersting, at the very least.

I wanted to make sure you got my message when you got home... we lost track of you at the paramount, and tried to find you, but... well, after about half an hour, we gave up. I still have no clue where in the world you disappeared to, but I didn't want you to feel like we left without you if you couldn't find US... am I making any sense? Anyways... we'll have to try this again, and this time without the losing-track-of-each-other part of the evening. 'cause, appart from that? Great fun. So. Yeah. Take care of yourself, don't work too hard... and read more Batman. He's fun, too. :)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was wondering where you went. I was a long time in the washroom because there were lineups, and when I came out, you guys weren't where you were before. I searched around that floor, and then decided you guys had navigated to the lobby. Once I was there, of course, I couldn't go back, and so I just headed to the lobby.

So we just seem to have gotten our wires crossed. Oh well. It was still a good movie.

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

the suggestions part is the one that has been driving me nuts... like i have all this stuff to say, but no one to say it to, and no way to use that in a politically positive way. being a minority is frustrating. being a minority along with people who are more concerned about getting laid (ie, the entire contents of Sky, Unity II, and Parking) is even more frustrating. I sort of feel as though the more appropriate way to approach all of this would be to rally along environmental lines as opposed to SSM lines, when it comes to not ending up with a conservative government. i think more people probably active support kyoto than actively support SSM, both of which stephe harper will nix. ultimately, there will be a non-confidence vote. ultimately, there's a 50/50 shot that there will be an election. we need to face that reality first, and then figure out the rest.

the question that my father and i have been pondering is "could the Bloq ever be a minority government?" and how cool would that be?

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

math done: in order for the bloq to have a majority, they would have to win every seat in quebec, (for a total of 75) and then the liberals, conservatives and ndp would each have to win 74, and then there would have to be one independent.

parliament go boom.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Haven't they once already? I remember there was some kerfuffle over "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition." I think that was the first or second time they ran.

As for the issues, I actually know far more same-sex marriage supporters than Kyoto supporters. I know a lot of people who are very apathetic about the envionment, but most of them are queer-positive.

And you're right about the community being way too complacent here. The problem is that this province is so queer-positive that there's very little queer activist culture. And so when there is an issue that needs addressing, there's very little infrastructure.

Even the social aspects are disappointing. Those of us who'd like to meet people in an environment without pounding music for, you know, a relationship have very few options. When I was living in Vancouver -- a much smaller city -- there were about twice the number of queer youth groups, two queer neighbourhoods, and a community centre with a drop-in social area that was open 9 to 5. It's depressing there's nothing like that here.

[infinitecomplex.livejournal.com]

Harper scares me. I'd be very disheartened if I finally made it here just in time to see the government fall into the hands of a neanderthal wingnut, not to mention what might happen to the gay marriage bill if said wingnut gets his way. I feel strangely powerless at the moment with all this election fever in the air (UK the day after tomorrow, BC on May 17th, and then the prospect of a federal election looming); the right to vote wasn't something I thought about much when I had it, especially as I'd rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than vote Labour or Tory in the UK and thus my vote always went to the third-string party, but it's strange how I'm feeling its absence right now. I'm not entitled to vote in Canada - and won't be for at least another three years, as permanent residents can't vote until they become citizens - and as I no longer have an address in the UK, I can't vote there either. I find it difficult to care much about the UK anymore, but I really wish I could vote here.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I can imagine. I became politically aware a good three years before I could vote, and couldn't imagine how the people who had the vote could squander that vote on morons, or not bother at all.

As for this government, there's only about a 50-50 chance that it'll go to the polls in the coming weeks. And after that, Harper's chances are far from assured -- fortunately for sane people across the country. His Ontario wing is warning him that Eastern Canada does *not* want a new election now (very true), and starting one could be suicide. Harper doesn't seem to care.

[jc2004.livejournal.com]

The thing that gives me hope in all this is a lot of people who are on the fence have been noticing Martin's classy restraint and Harper's histrionic pitbull on crack routine and the majority don't want an election. I'm hoping that people's desire to punish Harper for being a histrionic pitbull on crack who forced an expensive and unwanted election will be greater than their desire to punish Martin for inheriting somebody else's problem, assuming it comes to the worst and an election is called. I'm still hoping it won't come to that though. It's too bad that the right wing has all the lone wacko gun nuts. It would be nice to have a lone wacko gun nut to take Harper out right about now but unfortunately the left wing tends to be more reasonable than that.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I hope you're right. As for left-wing gun nuts, I keep thinking there must be a few, but names escape me right now.