confidence of the HoC in the first place?

Harper proposed to cut off funding for ALL parties, including his own, which would have taken the largest hit. The fact that the other parties rely on the taxpayer for a higher % of their total funds is their own problem.

And all those “other countries” that are rushing through stimulus packages are doing so because they are in much worse shape than Canada.

I wish I could speak to the pay equity issue, but I really haven’t seen much written about it (other than the Cons recant). But you say it involves some sort of time machine?.

No, not this time – postponing the inevidiable will not work for Canadians. Why should we wait for him to postpone attacking the economic problems, is that how little he thinks of Canadians?
That we should wait for relief while people are losing jobs, investments and our economy flounders?

Not.

His second major focus for the first session of his minority govt., was to cut off funding for his opponents. Was this based on logic, or his arrogant dictator qualities?

Harper’s third blunder is his lack of focus on the real problems and his lack of an economic stimulus package that all other countries are doing for reducing the damage of the recession which will last at least another 4 years, and it was not on his agenda.

Harper has to go and now, before our country dips into a depression. I support the coalition because it is the will of the majority of voters that did not vote for Harper which is 60 percent of the votes.

Harper in his second minority try, should have shown leadership not vidictiveness, and a vicious attack on women and minorities. Clearly Mr. Harper cannot command a majority in the electorate nor Parliament and has failed on both counts.

Fighting the coalition will be fruitless and will further divide the country now that Harper has insulted the quebec voters, and he himself sought a coalition with the Bloc when the Liberals were in power.

It seems the dictatorship of Harper reads ” do as I say, not as I do” and he did it to himself by showing a lack of leadership and a lack of attention to the real issues Canadian face in this recession.

Also to a comment about a one Party state, isn’t that what was going on for 12 years of Chreatin calling election almost 3 years apart because the conservatives/reform were scattered?

Plus overtaking the government is the only way Jack will be able to get a cabinet post as leader of the NDP.

A fact of truth is that none of the opposition parties even showed a fiscal plan at all during the election and Conservatives just said slow and easy. So it is see what is happening in the market and govern accordingly on spending. Remember most of the world is still waiting for the swearing in of the american president because his decisions will also effect the economy.

While the letter may at least imply such, the CBC interview says — nothing. “Alternative government”, like “government in waiting” is a term commonly used to refer to the leading opposition party as the logical alternative that voters could turn to should they desire to elect a different government.

A coalition by definition moderates the individual ideals in order to achieve a common goal. That being to protect Canadians at risk of losing their jobs etc.

IF Harper cared about Canadians he would have discussed and achieved his own coalition but he is to autocratic.

The opposition has the right and responsibility to oppose bad policy. Doing nothing while tens of thousands of Jobs is bad policy, Selling assets in a buyers market is bad economics AND bad policy.

A coalition by definition moderates the individual ideals in order to achieve a common goal. That being to protect Canadians at risk of losing their jobs etc.

IF Harper cared about Canadians he would have discussed and achieved his own coalition but he is to autocratic.

“OF COURSE the constitution requires that the GG seek a coalition among the opposition…”

That’s not at all clear.

In 1979, Joe Clark’s Tory government was defeated after the House Commons had been sitting for only two months. The Governor-General granted his request for a fresh election without first consulting with the opposition leaders.

” [quoting Harper] ‘The opposition has every right to defeat the government but Stéphane Dion does not have the right to take power without an election.’ I submit that Harper is wrong on both counts. Dion has no moral authority to collapse the House so early…”

Harper did not say that Dion can ‘collapse the House’. He said that he can ‘defeat the government’. Harper is exactly correct (at least on that point).

“We’ll support the government on issues if it’s essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians.”

Let’s see now: the Liberals and the NDP (when forming a new government) will NOT implement the cuts to business taxes so proposed, but will instead come up with grand “stimulus package” :

“So Iggy, how much for this company, and how much for that company – Hey, Jack where do you want the rest of the money to flow. We’ve runing out of options here…….”

And that would be considered a “responsible government?”

“Ms. Michelle Jean, come on down! “

The Liberals, the party of craven opportunism, are selling their soul to two devils – one which wants to destroy Canada’s financial industry in the middle of a global financial meltdown while at the same time destroying the oil industry that has provided the source of our prosperity – and the other that merely wants to blackmail whatever party is in control regardless of the national interest. And when the inevitable economic collapse happens, as it will, and Canada sinks into a deeper recession, the Liberals will wear the disaster not only in the next election but for a generation.

If I were a Liberal (which thankfully I am not), wouldn’t it make more sense to let the Conservatives take the fall for the poor economy over the next two years while the Liberals rebuild their party under a fresh new leader?

Am I missing something or have Liberal strategists just got carried away with typical Liberal arrogance?

It’s fine to dismiss this as a “talking point”, but you guys will wear it when the coalition is a huge disaster, just like much of the media is wearing it now for letting PMSH get away with his “everything is fine, nothing is ruined” schtick through the whole election.

but I’m thinking his period of being political kryptonite is over, no?

Shunning is bad form and should be reserved for the truly wretched, not one we disagree with, albeit strongly.

Harper knows the media and the Liberals only look a week ahead, just remeber these are the same people who said Harper was wrong to go after Dion over his botched interview last election.

Macleans.ca called Duffy fat and said Harper would lose the election over attacking Dion on not being able to answer a easy question.

Hey kady can we get you and portters post about how Harper was going to lose the last election over the Dion blunder, oh that’s right it disapeared LMAO

This is all part of a Grand Awesome Strategic Plan (GASP) which will leave us all dimwits dumfounded when its full brilliance is revealed in all its glory.

I share your analysis completely.

Egged on by some stupid strategic moves by PM Harper, the Liberal Party will live to regret its childish actions this week. If Liberals truly want to return to power they need to do it with a platform that they are able to sell to Canadians (i.e. not the Green Plan). And it should never include the anti-business rhetoric of Jack Layton, which would only devastate the Canadian economy.

If the notion of Jack, Dion and Duceppe running our country, was a viable option in the last election, Harper would have gained a supermajority.

It is now front and center. There will be a Harper supermajority within the next year,

either through an immediate election the GG decides to hold in the near future, or

following the crumbling of this grand coalition which most surely will fall apart within six months.

And so much for a serious period of reflection and renewal the Libs were promising (and badly needed). A week into the new session, before they have a policy convention or even a leader and they’re already clamoring for the reins of government.

Is there anyone left in the Liberal party who’s willing to look beyond the next week for a vision?

In 2 years, they blew 12 billion dollars of surplus, knocked income trusts back on their heads (but they’re back where they were before! I hear cried.. what I never hear questioned is “where would they have been but for Harper’s mismanagement?”) sent a lot of the BC lumber industry to the unemployment line permanently (thanks for the export quotas, Mr. Harper, that’s free trade indeed), and have done approximately nothing to begin preparing for what they maintain they saw coming over a year ago.

Now we have Flaherty promising to sell assets in the worst market in years and booking the value of them before he’s even decided which ones to sell, and having run operational deficits for over half a year.. and that’s during the *good* times, before Canada’s seen any of the real pain to come from the US slow-down.

I’m not mad about an NDP minister of Finance.. especially one that isn’t taking lessons from the provincial NDPs, but it’s better than the alternative.

PLEASE don’t forget the granny.

And it’s Harper that has demonstrated he cannot be trusted with an economy. The American neoconservatives proved it time and again; their Canadian lackeys are clearly no different.

Harper`s handling of the economy has protected us from what has happened to the rest of the world.

Please do not allow this overthrow of Canada`s Government to happen!

I am a 73 year old Granny whose only “pension” is my Mutual Funds. Which, by the way, have come back 13% this week and most certainly will tank if this happens.

She/he/it gives respectable pseudonyms like me a bad name.

Actually, if you think about it in terms of progressives vs. conservatives, he didn’t. A majority of voters chose progressives candidates, and a majority of the seats belong to progressive parties. If Canadian political parties didn’t recoil at the prospect of allying with the Bloc Quebecois, a progressive coalition would already have taken power, and the stories would be about how the Bloc and NDP had enhanced their positions within the governing coalition.

The real story here is that that anti-BQ recoil is vanishing in the face of Harper seriously overreaching on his political position and seriously bungling the stimulus package. The Liberals and NDP are both saying “hell with it, they may be sovereigntists but at least they aren’t going to screw over the economy to keep their base happy.” And if that revulsion fades to be replaced with a sort of benign progressive detente, that could be the start of the sort of enduring progressive coalition that Canada SHOULD have had since 2004 or so.

Harper’s worst nightmare was always that the three “opposition” parties would realize that they are opposition separately, but a government-in-waiting together. What’s incredible is that HE made it happen.

Uh huh, let me know how that works out for you.

I would love you whiners to siphon off some more wacko votes from the CPC. The Clarity Act applies for you nuts too.

I have never been a fan of Western Separation, but this might just be the one that puts us over the edge.

Seems to me that the best interests of the country, not to mention democracy, would best be served by a coalition of the parties that over 60% of voters cast their ballots for.