So Sam didn’t get on the gravy train.Gosh . No loss for the senate. They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel but Steveboy was busy shoring up his east coast section. The reform section of Harpers gang will have to grin and bear it. 135,000 till 75 isn’t bad bucks. Sure beats a lot of folks wages, or pensions, but ordinary folk don’t get the cushy positions

lol – senator sam, really, cmon.

a defeated mayor might not have been senator material, but at least two people (one from Nfld and one from BC) rejected by the people in the constituency they ran in, have, in the opinion of the PM, the right stuff. Appointing defeated candidates is so cynical. But hey what do you expect from a guy without a mandate.

Coldwater:

And I suppose you would agree with Barbara Yaffe suggesting in The Vancouver Sun that Stephane Dion should be appointed to the Senate then…because he had a “mandate” from the people?

You know the ‘mandate’ where he decimated the LPC, received the lowest vote in their history, etc..

Or perhaps you’re a Layton supporter who had even less support from the Canadian people then the sorry LPC did?

Please…you folks that keep suggesting Harper doesn’t have a mandate, and/or that he no longer has the confidence of the house are delusional.

We’ll see come January 27th if your new messiah votes with the coalition, or if he crawls back under the rock he came from knowing he will face certain defeat from the electorate.

The MAJORITY of Canadians did not vote knowing the Liberals and NDP would align themselves with the Bloc and you folks suggesting otherwise are living in denial.

Coldwater:

Paul Martin dithered and he paid the price. Had he lead with some balls things may be a lot differently now. He didn’t, they aren’t.

Harper may not rule how YOU and your fellow LPC and NDPer’s like, but he did win more seats than in the previous election, so he must be doing something right, along with all that wrong you complain about now, eh!

As for constitutional arguments, I’ll debate you any day. The party you voted for had less of a mandate to govern than Harper and had your party had the balls to put their plans on the table for the electorate to decide prior to the election, your party would have been voted into oblivion.

You want to talk constitutionally, should your messiah vote down the government in January, and the GG refuses an election, the Supreme Court will be called on to determine if a coalition can be created in the middle of a so-called term of office.

The Conservatives and their constitutional ‘experts’ argue that a coalition can only be formed immediately after an election. This presently is not the case.

Of course your side’s constitutional ‘experts’ will argue otherwise. Rather than get into a pissing match with you, since neither of us would hold the deciding yay or nay, I’ll leave it to the Supreme Court, if and when the time comes.

As far as I can tell you either supported Dion, possibly the most inept Liberal to ever lead that party, or Layton, a guy who would is so desperate for power he would sell off Canada to the Bloc for a chance to sit on the other side of the chamber.

Neither of those men are better prospects to lead this country than Harper whether you like to admit that or not.

Personally, I find all the personalities involved odious, and find myself curiously unmotivated by any possible leadership outcome (we are talking about Harper or Ignatieff here, which is sort of like choosing syphilis or gonorrhoea). But pretending that this is something unfair or illegal is frankly nonsense. This isn’t a matter of “sides,” it’s a matter of tradition and precedent. Apart from all of the situational particulars, coalitions are a potential outcome in any parliament with multiple parties and no majority. To argue that it’s somehow illegal is either to be completely ignorant of British parliamentary traditions, or a partisan hack looking to see power remain in the hands of the Conservatives. Raising the spectre of a Supreme Court case is impressive grandstanding, but nothing more-there is no case here (GTFO with that “middle of a term of office” nonsense. Sure, let’s call elections every month until we Labour Day just so your party is happy). If the coalition takes power, make as much political hay of it as you want. As long as the people elect a Parliament and not a government, coalitions are fair game. Man up, accept that, and plan the political push-back. I realize that this line of argumentation is in fact that push-back, but it’s painfully dishonest, even from Senate Reform Steve, man of the fixed election date, real ethics legislation, and no inducements for MP votes.

Oh, and Alex, two points. First, try and get the leader of the Liberal party right. Second, if we’re talking about sovereignty, let’s talk about nation resolutions supported by Captain Alberta (honourable mention to the Count for being the academic genius that started that nonsense off in the first place). I’m struggling to see the champion of a united Canada here.

Coldwater:

You write: “Oh and I don’t where your constitutional experts get the idea coalitions can only be formed immediately after an election. You do your cause no help using such infantile and fallacious arguments.”

I wrote: “The Conservatives and their constitutional ‘experts’ argue that a coalition can only be formed immediately after an election. This presently is not the case.”

Note how I wrote “the conservatives and their constitutional experts…”

Infantile and fallacious, please. There is currently no PRECEDENT under the CURRENT constitution for a coalition to be formed from opposition parties should a government be defeated with a non-confidence vote in the House during a so-called government term.

The previous time was in the 20’s if I’m not mistaken when Canada was governed under the BNA Act. Canada still flew the Union Jack, did not have a national anthem, and Newfoundland was still governing itself.

There is absolutely no reason for Harper to just hand over the keys to 24 Sussex to an opposition ‘coalition’ without testing the legality of said coalition in court. That’s not infantile, that’s just common sense if an election is not called by the GG – when there is no public support for the coalition.

Further if you’ve paid any attention at all to both left AND right wing media, you would have heard much of what I’ve wrote. Of course each side brings forward their own ‘experts’, constitutional or otherwise to debate these very points.

As I stated, I’m not going to waste any time arguing with anyone the validity of the argument, I was simply stating the ‘other’ side since you consistently flog that leftist propaganda that “Harper doesn’t have a mandate.”

To keep up with you on the voting front, I voted for Chretien in 93 and Martin, thinking he would make a great leader. Boy was I wrong. I don’t consider myself anything but a centrist and do not own a membership to any party for that matter. I will even add that I thought Broadbent was a decent fellow even though I did not or would not vote for him.

Going one step further, with your respect to your “Harper doesn’t have a mandate” mantra, under the current electoral regulations we follow in this country, YES he does.

If you no longer like how we elect our representatives, perhaps you need to start advocating for electoral reform – that seems to be what your argument is about seeing that it doesn’t hold water with how our current mandates are decided.

PTAK604:

Man up yourself!

Based on your statements ala “Senate Reform Steve, man of the fixed election date, real ethics legislation, and no inducements for MP votes.”, we know which side of the coalition you sit on anyway.

As long as politicians are lawyers or vice versa, these types of things are always possible, and in fact since when is challenging any law in court dishonest?

Oh I’m sorry, it’s wrong when the right does it, but not when the left does it!

And by the way British Parliamentary traditions MAY no longer be relevant since 1982. There should be nothing wrong in challenging that in court.

If you have a problem with that perhaps you should move to a more socialist country where laws cannot be challenged. Cuba, Venezuela, maybe….

Actually LP, you don’t know where I stand on the coalition, only where I stand on the use of precendent and tradition in politics. This would make me, in this case, conservative. I think I mentioned my distaste for Ignatieff as well as Harper? Allow me to toss Mr. Layton onto that pile of disrepute-I would not buy a used kitchen table from him, never mind sit around one with him. I would accept a Liberal/NDP coalition with slightly less distaste than a Harper government, but please don’t mistake that for approval or excitement. Frankly, I’d take someone of almost any political stripe who could combine honesty and competence, but this combination seems to be beyond our current batch of federal leaders.

Mr. Tsakumis, you made a reference in a present tense to Mr. Dion. I realize that you’d like people to cast your writing in the best light, but you are unfortunately stuck with what is actually there-not that there is a great deal there.

And of course gentlemen, this is likely all moot, as Mr. Ignatieff does not seem amenable to any sort of coalition.

ptak604:

The use of precedent and tradition in politics would only be relevant if the two parties threatening to force a coalition had more votes and more seats than the party given the mandate to govern.

They (Liberals and NDP) cannot form a stable government on their own, therefore you have no precedent or tradition. Likewise a court challenge is reasonable considering who they are being supported by to form that government.

Read again in simple English: There is no precedent or tradition for the current political situation in Canada.

To suggest you would support a Liberal/NDP coalition that would contain the man you wouldn’t buy a used kitchen table from and a man that you as well have ‘distaste’ for, suggests a more left-leaning persona. I won’t bother listing off the multitudes of other musings you’ve posted here that would support that.

You aren’t fooling anyone reading these posts where you stand.

Funny, you think I’m a conservative and that’s cool, but you’re mistaken.

I’d gladly vote for the Liberals should they clean house, get rid of Justin, Bob Rae, and have had a real leadership campaign that produced a leader who’s spent some time in this country over his lifetime. They continue to run their party with unbounded arrogance so I’m done with them until a) the Conservatives deserve to be voted out, or b) they elect a leader I can tolerate.

It seems as though in your posts you like to belittle or speak down to people. Your first comment to me was ‘to man-up’, now you tell me I’m not ready to face reality.

Are you able to have a debate without personally attacking people or does that give you a some sort of continually unsatisfying pleasure?

Why is it that you need to attack people’s character instead of providing good debating points?

Using anonymity on the Internet so you can be the assh*le you only wish you were in your real life must be very sad. Perhaps some counseling would be in order.