On the conservatives’ view of Parliament

I am getting very frustrated and irritated by the hurt tone the conservatives have been pushing in the past few weeks.

When they had majorities and teamed with the Bloc to close the house they were the saviours of democracy, defending us from our elected parliament. Now, when the Liberals have the support of the NDP and the Bloc we are seeing ridiculous statements in the media:

Harper: “I think it will lack legitimacy for a lot of Canadians. The truth is, most federalist MPs will oppose this legislation.”

MacKay: “I suspect that the Liberals may invoke closure, which they’ve done as recently as last week. The Liberals have banded together with the Bloc and NDP in the past to shut down Parliament and that strategy may unfold again.”

This kind of strategy insults our intelligence. All political parties expressed positions on same sex marriage in the last election campaign. The liberals, NDP and Bloc all came out in support of the legislation. Only the conservatives opposed it during the election. If we want to find out what Canadians supported at the polls then the matter is simple: Let’s look at the election results, then, and see what the national support for the issue is.

2004 Canadian Election Results
(from the CBC and Parliamentary Web)

Now, when we look at these numbers we will easily see that the three parties who are “banding together to shut down parliament” have not only the traditional mandate to pass legislation (a majority of seats) but have a further mandate from the people: In an election campaign partially fought upon same sex marriage these parties together captured 64.7% of the popular vote!

In fact, if you look at the data, in every province and territory except Alberta the Liberal/NDP/Bloc group captured more of the popular vote than the reform alliance conservatives.

Armed with this information, perhaps we should look at the conservative statement that three parties are ‘banding together to shut down parliament’ in a different light. It seems they are ‘banding together’ to satisfy their election promises and to satisfy the majority of Canadians… federalist and otherwise.

And while I’m ranting, I think that the fact that the liberals and NDP together had a majority in virtually the whole country means that it is quite appropriate for us to have a Liberal-NDP budget. One which, I point out is fully balanced.

It seems like we sent Parliamentarians to Ottawa to accomplish some stuff, and now they are doing it for a change. Good for them. And I wish the Cons would develop a sense of honour… not everyone agrees with Alberta and we don’t need to be slammed for it.

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› analysis     2005-06-27 17:51   ...1