(no subject)
Jan. 24th, 2006 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusWell, 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.
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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-24 05:18 pm (UTC)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.