Canada's new leader

CanadianCombat

Active member
Well after 12 years (I think) the Liberal Party of Canada is no longer in power. The conservatives have now takin over with our new Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
 
Yep but the libs still control your version of congress, Harper really doesnt have a mandate, but hopefully this is a start :)
 
Rabs said:
Yep but the libs still control your version of congress, Harper really doesnt have a mandate, but hopefully this is a start :)

Almost true!

Canadian Senate and Supreme Court are not elected bodies.

Premier has a say in who should go to the Senate and who should preside in the high court.

So chances that PM Harper can do some thing is a bit hard but hopefully he will do way better than the corrupt liberals.
 
Can someone break this down to me in 10 sentences or less since I really don't care enough to go find a whole article. What happened up in Canada? Like you recalled your president or something and elected a less-liberal guy instead?
 
Whispering Death said:
Can someone break this down to me in 10 sentences or less since I really don't care enough to go find a whole article. What happened up in Canada? Like you recalled your president or something and elected a less-liberal guy instead?

The Lib's who had been governing the country for 12 years (Jean Chretien, Paul Martin) were leading a minority government and their image was so much damaged by corruption scandals etc that last December Martin couldn't avoid calling for anticipated elections in January. Though the polls said the lib's would still win, the conservatives managed to beat them. Their leader, from what I have heard, is not a "less liberal guy", but someone extremely close to Bush and his views.
 
Their leader, from what I have heard, is not a "less liberal guy", but someone extremely close to Bush and his views.

We have adifferent ideology when it comes to Liberals, its very different frome the American version of liberals. And the "close to Bush part is not true. It was a propoganda commercial used by the Liberals, and the NDP. The only thing that Harper plans to do with america is maybe send troops to Iraq.

Like you recalled your president or something and elected a less-liberal guy instead?

We don't have a president, we have a Prime Minister.

What happened up in Canada?

The liberal party a few years back (when Jean Chretian was PM) around $4 million went missing. It turned out that they were using Canadian Tax payers money for their own personal expences ( vacations, cars, houses). And the peraon incharge of the money was our last PM Paul Martin. He was Canada's Finance Minister. Then when Paul Martin became PM he had to carry this weight on his shoulders. He then some how avoided paying taxes in Canada by rejesturing his name in 6 other countries.

your version of congress

In Canada we have a majority government.
Minority governments are not always short-lived. While they have not generally lasted four years, there have been minority governments in the time before 1979 that were fairly stable and able to pass legislation. Minority government situations in Canada may become somewhat difficult to manage though, as in the past there were only three parties that had a significant number of seats in parliament (fourth parties were at times represented in small numbers), although the third party has changed over time. This meant an alliance between the governing and third parties would have a solid majority. Since the 1930s, the third party was usually the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation or later the New Demicratic Party, which was created when an alliance was formed between labour unions and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. The Social Credit Party of Canada was the third party at times. Before this, there were other parties that had significant influence; such as the Progressive Party in the 1920s.
 
So is the NDP more to the left than the liberals are? And do you mean you give a different meaning to the term "liberal" than they do in the US?
Thank you.
 
Okay, so you directly elect your prime minister similar to an American President instead of the English Prime Minister system?

Which ever party wins the most seats in the house of commons Their parties leader becomes Prime Minister.
 
It wasnt 4 milion dollars missing, it was almost 250 milion dollars distributed among pro-federalist/pro-liberal companies to help the cause of federalism in Quebec province but well, the money went missing
 
Please note the difference between American Liberals and the rest of the world's liberals. In America the Democrats are liberal, the key issues that define them are abortion, religion in politics, gay marriage and welfare. Liberals are typically pro-abortion, further seperation of Church and State, in favor of gay marriage and are in favor of the expansion of welfare.

To most Americans all of Europe (and Canada) are liberal regardless of their political affiliations.
 
Damien

Your mistaken on both counts.

There are Conservative Democrats (Ben Nelson, Zell Miller, Joe Lieberman) there are moderates democrats (Bill Clinton, Al Gore) and of course there are liberals (Hillary, Ted). Same can be said for Republicans the liberals (Chafee, Snowe) moderates (McCain, Hagel, Collins, Snowe) and conservatives (Frist, Hastert, Delay). So I dont think you can just generalize Democrats as liberals...

Secondly not all Europeans are what Americans describe as 'liberals'. There is the Front Nationale in France, the British Conservative Party (whom sound like traditional Republicans although thankfully not Neocons), as well as the BNP. Pym Fortune in the Netherlands (I forget the party name) was certainly no liberal, nor where the smaller parties in Germany at Austria.
 
mmarsh

I was generalizing for the sake of simplicity. Obviously all parties have their exceptions.

And your last part does not matter at all. As I said "To most Americans all of Europe (and Canada) are liberal regardless of their political affiliations." Whether this is true or not does not matter because it is an opinion.

If you have HBO here in America you "know" that every nation but the US has some sort of news program that ends with the newscasters being completely nude (In Canada it is a couple of guys) And some of the commercials in Europe would result in the broadcasting company's assets being siezed by the FCC.
 
For over 200 years, the relationship between Canada and the USA has been one of deep and abiding friendship, and mutual respect. At least among the people, even though from time to time our leaders differed strongly.

That relationship was strained, almost to the breaking point by Canada's last two PMs, who were virulently anti-American. I sincerely hope the Right Honourable Mr. Harper will be able to help heal the deep wounds to that traditional friendship and trust that have occurred over the last few years.
 
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