NDP-Liberal Coalition to take over government in Canada with no confidence vote!

[Liberalboy]

Basically, the three left parties (Bloc, NDP and Liberals) are going to vote Harper and the Conservative minority government out and take over. 62% of the electorate teaming up to turn the country away from the right and a financial disaster. Unprecedented on the North American continent in a while.

CHANGE & HOPE! Canadian style

[political_Dem]

1. Would you explain how this is so?

I mean, wasn't there just an election in October that voted Harper in?

[Lautremont]

2. Harper's Conservative government is a minority,

and so they can easily be brought down in a confidence vote, and then replaced by a coalition if one can be formed. Well, it has been formed, and the Conservatives have set themselves up for a confidence motion, and so it goes.

[political_Dem]

3. Wow. Thanks for that information. That's rather amazing and spectacular. :)

As I read your explanation, I was just thinking what it might have been like if there was a no-confidence vote to get Bush out many years before the damage settled into the United States. Things would have changed for the better.

Again, I appreciate the news and I am very happy that there was enough of a coalition to vote Mr. Harper and his allies out of power. Let's do hope that change comes to Canada with this move.

[Liberalboy]

4. Harper has a Minority Government...

he serves at the pleasure of the people with a simple majority, but not 1/2 +1. He needs cooperation to pass things and this time he played a nasty card (pulling political public funding, and making strikes illegal for two years, plus no plan to help the economy.) they are within their right to vote against Mr. Harper and the Conservatives and ask the Governpr-General to grant them the right to form a Coalition Government instead of a new election.

It's legal and possible and our only way out of the nasty right turn Canada made.

[political_Dem]

5. Indeed. I am very glad that it was done.

I'm also happy that there were enough politicians to nip it in the bud before true damage could take place in your government.

Thanks to you also for your information.

[rationalcalgarian]

6. I'll do my best.....

In Canada, we have many political parties but the Conservatives and the Liberals are the main ones (sorry, Jack). Consequently, the ruling party after an election is the one that has more seats than any other single party. However, if two or three other other parties have enough seats combined to outnumber the ruling party, as is the case here, there can be a "non-confidence" vote in the House which will constitutionally defeat the ruling party and an election must be called no matter how short the life of the ruling, minority, government.
This happened in 1979 after the Conservatives, under Joe Clark, were defeated in a non-confidence vote after only nine months.
Unlike the US, Canada has no set time limit on the life of a government except that it cannot hold power for more than five years without calling an election.

The question remains, however, and I confess I can't answer this one, is how the proposed coalition can claim to be the government without another general election. I'm watching the discussion on the CBC right now and maybe I'll be able to piece it together but, so far, no one has explained it.

[Liberalboy]

7. Because....

precedent was also set in Ontario and in 1920; the Governor-General has a "reserve right" in the situation to offer the opposition an opprotunity to form government if the current one fails. Being so close after the election and a crisis makes it more plausible

[rationalcalgarian]

8. Ah, I see

The King-Byng affair!

[Liberalboy]

9. Yeah....

I guess it's Canada's once in a generation fix this way :-)

[Lautremont]

10. You don't vote for the prime minister in Canada, or even for the party.

You vote for the MP, and the majority of MPs that were voted in this last election were not Conservatives. So a coalition government made up of more elected MPs than the ruling party has, has indeed been legitimately elected.

[political_Dem]

11. Again, I appreciate you, rationalcalgarian, Liberalboy, and Lautremont, for your answers.

Your discussion below has shed a lot of light of how this procedure is done. I can even understand its process, knowing that there aren't set term limits like the U.S.

But is there something close to that in America? No way. We have to wait a specific period of time to vote candidates out. And if we do vote enough of a number of candidates belonging to a specific party (as in Elections 2006 and 2008), then that is our way of having a vote of "no confidence".

Other than that, there's impeachment, but that has to do with individuals more than entire groups.