MYL

it technically might not work a cleanly as that.

it could amount to Harper holds fast; opposition holds fast and defeats the government; Harper would seek dissolution and an election; the opposition, if we are to believe the news etc., get their act together and forms a coalition; the GG asks the leader of that coalition if they could hold the confidence of the House; they could; and thus they form government.

In other words, if Harper holds fast and the opposition does, he will likely not get the election… he will simply lose power. thus, as Paul says, he has to blink.

seaandthemountains,

I am sure the Liberals would get a chance to hobble together confidence. I just don’t see them succeeding in the medium term, if at all, and thus the election cometh.

I think the argument that the taxpayer-paid tithe to bona fide political parties that is based on number of people voting for whichever party VERSUS Harper and Flaherty’s stance of politicians sucking off the public teat, to be the fly in the ointment. However would either of those two go where they are today without it? And how can Canadians be assured that political activism and new ideas that enough people want to vote for is protected.

Seems to me that Harper/Flaherty have decided that ordinary Canadian shall be forced to think only one way. If they think the other, they are on their own in this great country even when a goodly sum think the ideas are worthy. Think about it: Canada has decided some while ago that funding personal votes to the tune of $1.75 (less than a cup of coffee these days) is a hat tip and a boon to free thought and free expression.

That Harper/Flaherty would use this freedom torch as a baton to beat down opposition from any quarter makes your average Canadian (this one anyway) wonder why this instead of the myriad other issues a real government would be wanting to address.

Parliamentarians and Canadians have decided that it is a good thing to allow/foster views other than its own, and recognize individual Canadians who vote with a paltry $1.75 if they actually get off their duffs and make an X for some bozo. Seems a fair deal, considering the taxes same individual Canadians pay just to get up in the morning.

Why is Harper attacking this?

Seems like Harper keeps wanting to reinvent the wheel in his own image, and convince his populace that it is a new thing. All other ideas based on the wheel are suddenly suspect and subject to Harper’s improvements.

Comes a time when a man’s reach exceeds his grasp. Perhaps it is time for Harper to go on to better ideas. Face it man, the wheel is here to stay. It’s round. Period.

Has Harper run out of ideas? Or is he waiting for someone to come clear the crud out from under his exercise wheel?

He’ll back down because it’d be much more interesting if he didn’t.

I love how both sides of this issue know what public opinion is going to be.

Harperites: Everyone will love this because the public is always in favour of political parties getting less money!

Non-Harperites: Everyone will hate this because it makes Harper look petty and vindictive. The Liberals will form a government under Stephane Dion!

I think it’s pretty clear that neither side can say with certainty what the outcome will be. That said, there are three points I’d like to make here.
1) The public in general already sees Harper has petty/vindictive/mean. It hurts him, but less than you’d think (he won the last election with those public perceptions).
2) Can anyone honestly see a scenario where Stephane Dion could a) win an election campaign or b) hold together an inherently devisive coalition government, particularly when he couldn’t even hold together his inherently-divisive-but-to-a-smaller-degree party?
3) I asked my wife what she thought of this story as we listened to CBC radio in the car. She barely follows politics (she knows Liberals are left and Conservatives are right, but that’s about it) and she defaults to neutral (and she dislikes Harper), and her response was “political parties should get less money”. Now, it’s just an anecdote and not reflective of a trend one way or another, but she had that reaction after a CBC report, and after I reiterated that it was basically just a slap at the opposition. She shrugged and maintained her opinion.

the Bloc gets squeezed on their funding, that’s something all Canadians can rally around.

Obviously Jarrid’s definition of Canadian doesn’t include the 2 million or so that voted for the Bloc.

I happened to catch Stephen Taylor on tv last night while flipping around the channels and he and another rightwing talking head were badgering some liberal about this. It’s outrageous that Canadians are supporting a separatist party with their tax dollars they were braying at the liberal. I couldn’t help notice the similarity with another issue that came up not so long ago. Remember the little nugget hidden in Bill C-10 and the howls from conservatives that it was outrageous that Canadians are funding offensive movies with their tax dollars.

A clear pattern is emerging with this government and its supporters. They see themselves as sole arbiters of what is and isn’t acceptable in this country. Movies, political ideology, who is and isn’t a Canadian (think back to the Israel-Lebanon war and the outrage kicked off because Canadians with duel citizenship were being helped with their tax dollars) and the list goes on and on.

I don’t ever recall any other government acting in such a manner and it’s a very disturbing trend that needs to be squashed every time it raises its ugly head.

Harper has gone “all in”.

The Liberals should defeat the government, and force an election with Jean Chretien as an interim leader.

Jonathon – did you tell your wife that taxpayers will still be funding political parties in the form of those generous tax rebates we get for political donations?

“Obviously Jarrid’s definition of Canadian doesn’t include the 2 million or so that voted for the Bloc.”

1,379,991. A stone’s throw from the Greens, actually.

Harper is not going to want to be midwife to a new era of coalition politics that will relegate the Conservatives to permanent opposition status.

The dorks in the Conservative brain trust that hatched this plan will be sacrificed. It was a huge tactical blunder.

Ti-Guy: If that’s what he meant, why didn’t he say “formula and diapers”? Works out to the same thing, doesn’t it?

Here’s the full quote:

“Don’t give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn,” Reid said during a panel discussion on CBC News: Sunday. “Give them child-care spaces that work. Stephen Harper’s plan has nothing to do with child care.”

I think the use of the word blow, Reid’s subsequent apology, and Martin’s statement that “There’s no doubt in my mind that parents are going to use (the money) for the benefit of their families,” pretty much mean that Reid was implying that parents would waste the money. Don’t you?

“The principle of charity demands that a particular expression be evaluated with the assumption that the speaker is well-intentioned.”

Out of curiosity, doesn’t that apply across the board? Couldn’t some Conservative hack come remind us that the party is only “trying to set an example in these tough economic times” and that “30 million may be a drop in the bucket but it’s symbolic of the political parties commitment to belt-tighten”?

If that seems ludicrous, it’s because it is. But then, when looking out on the world through the rosy glasses of partisan fervour, doesn’t everything from one side seem sensible and everything from the other seem wrong? Enlighten us, Ti-Guy.