Is anybody else curious how Harper is going to negotiate through this? Will be be diplomatic, or will he count on the opposition parties not wanting an election so soon? I'm excited.
No, I would assume they will pass it, cause if they really wanted to, they could just vote down the first Bill that comes along if Harper trys to put something stupid through.
Hasn't he already announced that he is going to renege on Martin's deal (I think he had them w/ Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba) and instead institute the $100/child/month? Shitty for Quebec, in particular. They already have a fairly badass healthcare system.
I'm hoping for election after election after election. I want to see just how ridiculous Canadian politics can possibly get.
Martin had no deal with Quebec because Quebec has had it's own provincially run and funded child-care program for a few years now. Infact it was the Quebec system that Martin more or less wanted to model a national program on but IMO never really took it beyond the stage of 'big talk'. The deals he had with Manitoba and Ontario we're nothing more than an attempt to buy some votes because he saw the ship sinking, seemed more like a handout than any sort of national 'vision' (not to say the money wouldn't have done some good). Anyways, as for the the speech from the throne, I didn't catch it myself but from what I heard/read it sounds like it was extremely vague, which is basicly what I expected. He basicly said enough to keep people happy, and not so much as to give the opposition particular points of contention. But I don't know if that means it was political spin, I think the conservitives are just as miffed about what the months to come will bring as is the oposition. This minority government has an entirely different dynamic than it's predecessor in that the Governing party is not the only one who will be walking on pins and needles. The oposition is in an equally precarious situation, the liberals need to make this government last atleast 2 years for them to complete thier leadership campaign and give the new leader a chance to establish him/herself with the role and Canadians. The Bloc knows there best bet to retain there current number of seats, and maybe even get a few back, is to wait for the next provencial election (07/08) and the PQ government it will likely bring and the subsequent new wave of soverigntist discussion that will come with it. The NDP, well, they don't have anything to lose neccessarily but they are financially unable to take on another election for quite some time now that the CAW has pulled it's support. By all rational this government shouldn't work, but the current political climate is going to dictate that it has to. atleast that's my two cents
Yes, they did. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1140735014795&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home
my bad, point still stands though that they have their own program already, so this really isn't a loss for them when they're not having anything taken from them they didn't already have
Huh? The cancellation of the federal funding is costing the province $800 million dollars out of the promised $1.1 billion over 5 years (because they get one year of funding under the opt-out clause). The short of it is, they are going to have a hard time continuing to fund their provincial daycare program without federal support. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1139312888273&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467
These are all fictional figures though, money for a deal which was signed but never implemented, or even passed in a budget. Charest and Duccepe are just playing out the knee jerk political reaction by saying they're losing money, but you can't really lose something if you didn't have it to begin with. Now if they were already locked into a deal, recieving payments, and as result re-allocated that portion of what was once thier own tax revune to another area of thier provincial budget or created a tax-cut in it's place then I would say it's a loss because it then becomes an unexpected expense. But the way this has worked out last years budget for the provencial daycare program will ressemble this years budget, so where's the loss?
