And I thought Canada was a free country.

[screembloodymurder]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081204/national/parliament_crisis

WTF?

[DerekJ]

1. Your title has no relation to the article!!

[originalpckelly]

2. I think the poster means to say that it's outrageous...

the reserve powers of the monarch have been exercised in such an undemocratic fashion. Perhaps it is a suggestion that any system with a monarch is not democratic?

(Which is sort of an "oh duh" type of thing.)

[DerekJ]

3. Perhaps, but then there are no democratic system without flaws in them. I am outraged (though I'm a

liberal), at the prospect of Harper losing his democratically elected position in such undemocratic fashion, by a very volatile and unstable coalition. I don't think this will bode well for the liberals.

[mudesi]

5. There is nothing undemocratic about it

That's a lie being told by (surprise, surprise) the conservatives. It's typical, really, that they only way conservatives can retain any sort of power is by lying to the people and hoping the ignorant masses fall for it.

Over 60% of the Canadian population voted for a left wing party in the last election. Harper won a minority government, not a majority. He was not elected prime minister, he simply heads the political party that holds the most seats in parliament. United, the left wing parties have more seats than him.

Coalition governments are normal and commonplace in other countries with a parliamentary system. They are more democratic.

My understanding of the situation is that Harper wanted to
1) Cut public financing to political parties, effectively grabbing power by making it harder for the other parties to raise money.
2) Sell public assets to balance the budget, because as we all know, conservatives are incapable of adding and subtracting and always run a deficit.
3) Take away certain unions' right to strike. (Hello, ghost of Ronald Reagan)

If you ask me, Canada ought to be thanking God that Mr. Harper did not win a majority government and that the left wing in Canada has an actual spine and refuses to stand for such anti middle class, corporate fascist policies.

[applegrove]

7. Agreed with all you said. You have a great take on events.

[Posteritatis]

6. In practice the governor-general is subordinate to the PM

This simply underscored that. The system gives the appearance to the contrary at times, but if a governor-general or lieutenant-governor blew off a prime minister or premier in Canada these days folks would rewrite the constitution in a week in reaction to it.

I hate Harper, I'm disappointed at how this all turned out, but I'm not outraged or freaking out about the loss of my democratic rights or anything else. None of my rights - none whatsoever - were violated here. I wish the situation was settled, but as it stands it's "just" been put on pause. Harper might think he won this, but the way in which it was concluded means the government can't, y'know, govern until January, at which point round two of this whole situation gets fought. It's a pause.

Legally this entire issue's uncharted territory that could have gone either way. If she'd prorogued Parliament it would have been something new in the current system that would have pissed a lot of people off. If she'd let Dion form a government it would have been something new in the current system that would have pissed a lot of people off. If she'd dissolved Parliament altogether it would have been something new in the current system that would have pissed a lot of people off.

All three options would be legit constitutionally, but they would all also have been either unprecedented or nearly so. People have a tendency to confuse "I've never heard of this" with "this can't happen," which is silly at best. The ranting about coups and tyrannies and so on about this whole issue strikes me as the same general level of stupid as people talking about Canada as some sort of dystopia because it doesn't operate under the American constitution.

[TrogL]

4. Canadian is a Parliamentary democracy

It runs by different rules, which everybody has followed.

The Governor-General has implemented a cooling off period. The reading the Budget is a confidence Motion. If things haven't settled by then, the government will fall and it's on to plan B, probably the coalition or plan C a new election.

[TexasObserver]

8. now you know they still kiss the Crown's ass occasionally

Have you ever noticed who is on their currency? It's the Queen.

Royalty = hundreds of years of inbred idiocy.

[mudesi]

9. It's all symbolic

Even in this case, the Governor general simply did what she was asked to do. I highly doubt anybody would take any order from the queen seriously, not just in Canada, but in the UK as well.