Good evening and welcome, friends.
Because we had so much fun with this topic last time, I thought it was time to start again. Why? Because it's starting to look nigh-inevitable that we are heading for another Battle Royale in the NPS.
This promises to be the most riveting OTF thread of 2011. Riveting discussions on the subject of amortization? Pah! Philosophically rigorous interpretations of the tem "attempt to trip"? Feh! Cryptic Sodding Crosswords? Pfff! These will be nothing comapred to the sheer entertainment value of a trip to the hustings here in the Narco-Petro-Superpower.
To recap - it's been almost 2.5 years since the last election. The Tories have maintained a stance of being strategically brilliant but tactically inept. They've managed to project an image which is largely one of competence in public policy (give or take a census decision or two) while at the same time looking like creeps, liars, thugs and bullies when it comes to the machinery of politics. All of which leaves them where they were 30 months ago - probably a couple of percentage points shy of victory.
Michael Ignatieff has been uninspiring as opposition leader - but then opposition leaders are always pretty uninspiring. The NDP's Jack Layton is clearly in his last campaign - he'll be campaigning on a broken hip if the writ is dropped in the next couple of weeks. The Bloc Quebecois will get its 45-50 seats just for showing up. in short, all the polls point to an outcome almost identical to the one we have now.
So, why go to the polls now? Because if not now, it can't be till next year. Canadians hate summer elections (we get so little of it we can't be bothered to clutter it with politics) And there are a minimum of six provincial elections due this fall, and you don't really want to have overlapping timelines.
So now it's just figuring out how best to time it. We've a budget due on March 22. Until last week, it seemed as if that would be the occasion to nail them. But then it dawned on the Liberals that a vote around the issue of economic competence might not work so well - the Tories rank pretty highly on this, and Canadians have (ungratefully, IMHO) forgotten what a good job the Liberals did of this in the 1990s.
But this morning, the Speaker hit the Tories with two separate contempt of Parliament rulings. Triggering a vote on these issues would make the vote about thuggishness and creepiness. Bonus!
But now it's a race against time - can the opposition get a non-confidence motion in front of the house before a budget gets tabled? Bet on the Tories using a Parliamentary trick to release the budget a couple of days early if the opposition looks like they are going to succeed.
Political intrigue! Parliamentary maneuvers! Michael Ignatieff! You won't want to miss it! I'll be your host for this thread, with WOM, AdC and linus providing expert colour commentary (plus fatbastard and unbelievable jeff, if they ever wander through this part of the World).
Because we had so much fun with this topic last time, I thought it was time to start again. Why? Because it's starting to look nigh-inevitable that we are heading for another Battle Royale in the NPS.
This promises to be the most riveting OTF thread of 2011. Riveting discussions on the subject of amortization? Pah! Philosophically rigorous interpretations of the tem "attempt to trip"? Feh! Cryptic Sodding Crosswords? Pfff! These will be nothing comapred to the sheer entertainment value of a trip to the hustings here in the Narco-Petro-Superpower.
To recap - it's been almost 2.5 years since the last election. The Tories have maintained a stance of being strategically brilliant but tactically inept. They've managed to project an image which is largely one of competence in public policy (give or take a census decision or two) while at the same time looking like creeps, liars, thugs and bullies when it comes to the machinery of politics. All of which leaves them where they were 30 months ago - probably a couple of percentage points shy of victory.
Michael Ignatieff has been uninspiring as opposition leader - but then opposition leaders are always pretty uninspiring. The NDP's Jack Layton is clearly in his last campaign - he'll be campaigning on a broken hip if the writ is dropped in the next couple of weeks. The Bloc Quebecois will get its 45-50 seats just for showing up. in short, all the polls point to an outcome almost identical to the one we have now.
So, why go to the polls now? Because if not now, it can't be till next year. Canadians hate summer elections (we get so little of it we can't be bothered to clutter it with politics) And there are a minimum of six provincial elections due this fall, and you don't really want to have overlapping timelines.
So now it's just figuring out how best to time it. We've a budget due on March 22. Until last week, it seemed as if that would be the occasion to nail them. But then it dawned on the Liberals that a vote around the issue of economic competence might not work so well - the Tories rank pretty highly on this, and Canadians have (ungratefully, IMHO) forgotten what a good job the Liberals did of this in the 1990s.
But this morning, the Speaker hit the Tories with two separate contempt of Parliament rulings. Triggering a vote on these issues would make the vote about thuggishness and creepiness. Bonus!
But now it's a race against time - can the opposition get a non-confidence motion in front of the house before a budget gets tabled? Bet on the Tories using a Parliamentary trick to release the budget a couple of days early if the opposition looks like they are going to succeed.
Political intrigue! Parliamentary maneuvers! Michael Ignatieff! You won't want to miss it! I'll be your host for this thread, with WOM, AdC and linus providing expert colour commentary (plus fatbastard and unbelievable jeff, if they ever wander through this part of the World).
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