(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

Well, my Canadian friends have the story by now -- we have a Conservative minority government. Final numbers are Conservative 124, Liberal 103, Bloc 51, NDP 29, Independant 1.

Of course, if we had proportional representation, that would Conservative 111, Liberal 93, Bloc 32, NDP 54, Greens 14 and we could have had a Liberal/NDP/Green majority coalition.

The Good News

First, the NDP did marvellously. My party picked up 11 new seats, more than a 50% increase, meaning we did better, relatively speaking, than anyone else.

Bloc support is eroding. As scary as it is to see deep francophone territory going Conservative, it does mean that separatism is no longer the only issue in Quebec. The Bloc went from 49% to 42% of the popular vote in Quebec. There are so many critical things that have been left on the backburner because of separatism, this is good news.

Must be the Boisclair effect -- people see the coke-snorting right-wing asshole, imagine him leading a free Quebec, and federalism starts to look more interesting.

Now the really good news: a minority government was the best we could've hoped for. In fact, it may even be better for us than than a Harper loss.

Harper is now paralyzed. He can't "get things done" because he any direction will be disatrous. He can't pass most laws because the Bloc and NDP are farther to the left, and the Liberals despise him. He needs Bloc and NDP support, and that means leaping one major jump to the left.

Harper's enough of a pragmatist he could do it -- but then he'd alienate his base of social conservatives. And how will he handle the Quebec question, now that he has francophones in his party? That's what broke Mulroney's West/Quebec coalition in the 1990s.

Anything he does at this point will either reveal him as a social conservative, or alienate the party base. He's stuck. Meanwhile, his socially conservative candidates have a hard time keeping their mouths shut. Within a few months, they'll start spouting their verbal diarrhea to the press.

Harper is mostly contained. And, contained, he can now safely detonate.

Or almost safely contained, except for one critical issue:

The Bad News

Harper may not be able to get the Liberals to co-operate on budgets and other whipped votes, but there's one thing the Liberals always allow free votes on: queer equality.

Even though the Conservatives do not have a minority government, the unfortunate Liberal and Bloc tendency not to consider our equality an important issue means that we could still lose the same-sex marriage vote. In fact, Matt's been running the numbers, and a majority of members of the House of Commons -- even in a best-case scenario -- would vote against same-sex marriage.

That's right -- homophobic Liberals and Blocquistes, added to homophobic Conservatives, form a majority voting block, now. Best Case Scenario is that 157 will vote against, while 150 will vote in favour.

Harper can't kill same-sex marriage without using the Notwithstanding Clause. But if he turns it into an issue of "activist judges," this fundamentalist sociopath may be able to claim the moral high ground.

Comments

[scottevil.livejournal.com]

How soon do the Fagtorium Political Analysts see this vote happening?

Would it at all affect the provincial definitions of marriage? Jer and I were considered married (in Quebec at least, and I'd assume in the other provinces that at the time recognized same-sex marriage), and this was before federal SSM passed.

Really, what I don't understand is, what impact would Harpermort's reverting the definition of marriage have on provincial matters and their own definitions?

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

This is the only way I can see this going, if Harper tries to stop SSM:

1) Free vote is brought to the floor: BIRT bill C-38 be repealed. Does not use Notwithstanding Clause.

2) Bill may or may not pass. Current house standings are, best-case scenario, 150 pro-SSM, 158 anti-SSM; some anti-SSM people may choose to vote against a repeal bill because they think the issue oughtn't to be re-opened or because they agree that it would have to use the Notwithstanding Clause. There's also the question of the Senate. But, let's assume:

3) Bill passes. Turmoil erupts.

4) Provinces -- or at the very least BC, Ontario, Quebec, and some other lefty ones -- promptly ignore bill on the grounds that their SSM ruling overrides present legislation. Queers continue to marry.

5) Egale and some other people pull a charter challenge on the repeal bill, under s.15+Egan. Then it's up to the Supreme Court who in all probability will rule in favour of SSM, upholding the 9 lower court rulings.

6) Harper either a) drops the issue, arguing he did all he could, or b) attempts to use the NWC, at which point everyone freaks out and steps on his head, including fairly goodsized chunks of his own caucus (they aren't all rabid religious fanatics, just most of them) and most of the anti-SSM Liberals.

Summary: Harper tries it, uproar ensues, many people yell at each other, SSM ultimately comes through undamaged mainly due to apathy.

[metawidget]

(2) alternate: Liberals realize that SSM is one easy way for Canadians to avoid red-blue colourblindness (which'd be disastrous, as the most recent scandal is the Libs' and they don't want that to be the only visible difference between them and the Conservatives). Whips come out. Bill gets killed. It could happen.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

It's a possibility. But we have no idea what kind of leader the Liberals will come out with. The last two have tried to deal with the growing power of the right by saying, "If you can't beat them, join them."

Such a leader, in this context, may want to increase rather than decrease colourblindness. Many of these people take their cues from market analysts, and ideas of "economy of scale" being popular right now, the Liberals may feel that they're best off offering the same product with slicker packaging :/

The real question is, "Will the next Liberal leader be a Laurier/Pearson/Trudeau? Or a King/Chrétien/Martin?"

[scottevil.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I said to Jer last night: the Liberals need another Trudeau.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

As I argued above, I think the scenario Harper has planned is this:

1)Bring the bill to the ouse of Commons

2)Having counted, as we did, and found the number of homophobes is higher than the sane MPs, he'll huff and puff about it being a free vote, and grab the moral high ground -- his usual tactic -- declaring that anyone who whips the vote is undemocratic.

3)Appealing to bigotry (not a rational force and one that cannot be analysed in the usual terms of political self-interest) he'll convince people to "vote with their conscience."

4)If he can get it passed, the courts will say "No way."

5)Then Harper starts talking about "activist judges". He'll wrap himself in the flag and declare it a battle for democracy. In other words, grabbing the moral high ground again. In this way, he'll try to make use of the "nothwithstanding clause" politically correct.

Harper's got a talent for this kind of obfuscation. It's the reason we're calling him Prime Minister, after all.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

"How soon do the Fagtorium Political Analysts see this vote happening?"

People are being pretty optimistic. I'm a pessimist where these things are concerned. It's safer.

The pundits are saying he won't want to raise it this term. I'm not so sure. Harper is generally a pragmatist, but he's also an evangelical, and like most evangelical politician he's given to outbursts and extremely erratic behaviour from time to time.

It's also possible that one of his backbenchers could force the issue. He's got a lot of unstable people in his party who believe they're fighting a holy war for Christ. They think God's on their side, and that gives them a kind of giddy optimism.

Any member of parliament can introduce a bill. Once there, Harper can't get rid of it without voting against it -- which he can't do because it would alienate his base.

Would it at all affect the provincial definitions of marriage? Jer and I were considered married (in Quebec at least, and I'd assume in the other provinces that at the time recognized same-sex marriage), and this was before federal SSM passed.

This gets into complicated Canadian laws. In most of the world, marriage is either a federal or a state/provincial/départment/Land issue. In Canada, it's split between levels. The federal level controls the definition of marriage.

This gets even more complicated, because the various court of appeals (including the Quebec Court of Appeal) can change a federal law -- but only within their province. Even though it's federal law that's been changed, the change stops at their border.

That's why a federal definition was applied on provincially. If the federal law is changed back, and shored up with the "notwithstanding clause", it applies everywhere. Even Quebec. Even Ontario. Even BC.

[(Anonymous)]

I think I asked this before, and I'm not sure I ever got an answer: what's your basis for saying he's an evangelical Xtian? Is that really true, or is it just something that people ascribe to him to fit their image of him and Albertans in general?

I ask because I've always thought he was pretty secular. But I don't really know.

[sorceror.livejournal.com]

[Oh, sorry, that was me. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in.]

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Harper's never actually made a secret of his religion. You can find it on Wikipedia, or in an article by the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/24/AR2006012400072.html):

"Harper, who belongs to the evangelical Christian Missionary Alliance, is opposed to abortion. But he denies Martin's campaign claims that he would move to overturn abortion rights and has avoided questions about whether he'd attempt to overturn gay marriage."

The Christian Missionary Alliance isn't exactly the sort of church that attracts Easter-and-Christmas believers. It used to be merged with Pentecostalism, and broke away in 1912. The Christian Missionary Alliance people didn't like holy rolling, but wanted more of an emphasis on faith healing -- something which is still important for it.

The real question is not "What's his religion?" but "How much will it influence his work in parliament." For an answer, we could turn either to his voting record on queer rights (http://egale.ca/printer.asp?lang=E&item=249&tab=record&person=416), which is abysmal, or to his speech to the neo-con organization Civitas (http://www.ccicinc.org/politicalaffairs/060103.html), in which he says:

"What this means for conservatives today is that we must rediscover the common cause and orient our coalition to the nature of the post-Cold-War world.

The real enemy is no longer socialism. Socialism as a true economic program and motivating faith is dead.

...

The real challenge is therefore not economic, but the social agenda of the modern Left. Its system of moral relativism, moral neutrality and moral equivalency is beginning to dominate its intellectual debate and public-policy objectives.

He never mentions homosexuality specifically, but mentions "strengthening the institution of marriage" as a goal. In a speech about merging social and economic conservatism given in Canada in 2003, the words "strengthening the institution of marriage" have an extremely loaded meaning -- especially since Harper was fighting same-sex marriage at the time.

[pink-str8jackit.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile tons of money and time are wasted, that's if Harper doesn't get ousted first by some vote of no-confidence that would trigger another election.

Hmmm...the whole marriage bill crap is definitely to divert eyes from other stuff, to tire us out on all sides.

All I keep thinking is this: one of his spawn is queer. It's becoming my mantra.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...the whole marriage bill crap is definitely to divert eyes from other stuff, to tire us out on all sides.

It's not all crap. Frankly, I couldn't give a damn about a church wedding.

Many of my friends, though, are counting on the legal rights attached to marriage. What happens to the friends of mine who are sponsoring a spouse's immigration as "family class," if they're suddenly no longer family? What about the man whose medication plan only extends to a spouse, and his spouse is about to become a stranger in the eyes of the law?

A lot of suggestions have been thrown around about civil unions, but this is dangerous because such things are purely provincial, and have no national or international weight. A same-sex marriage will be recognized in the Netherlands. A civil union in Quebec is not recognized in Alberta.

And if you're travelling in a foreign country that, say, only lets spouses into a hospital room if your spouse is in an accident, or something of that sort, it can become a major issue.

I also refuse to let the religious right set a precedent for the mingling of church and state. Even a word is too much to allow them.

Lastly, I think it's an important issue from a social perspective as well. In the years I've been helping to fight this battle, I've noticed it forces dialogue.

Marriage is something concrete -- not like abstract theories of representation that only people with a post-secondary education in the humanities are likely to know. Marriage is within common experience.

I've had hundreds of conversations with hundreds of people on this in the last few years, and almost everyone who isn't an evangelical thinks the evangelicals are being assholes. This issue is solidifying support in response to the solidifying opposition on the other side.

And we can use that solidifying support for other issues, too, I've found. I've used same-sex marriage conversations with straight people as inroads to discussions of queer teen suicide, and queerbashing.

clarification

[pink-str8jackit.livejournal.com]

Stephen Harper's crap he's unloading on same-sex marriage. No judgment against marriage from me, especially because I plan on doing it! ;-)

[pink-str8jackit.livejournal.com]

I fogot to mention that there are many crypto-homophobes and straight supremacists who won't say thing we don't like to hear to our faces. (Their) god forbid they be found out!