{"id":4405,"date":"2011-03-26T05:14:58","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T12:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4405"},"modified":"2011-03-26T05:14:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-26T12:14:58","slug":"canada-shows-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/26\/canada-shows-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada Shows the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I wish that the US has a parliamentary system like Canada.  No impeachment is needed to remove a government from power, just a vote of no confidence.  In such a system, minor parties matter.  Here in the US, voters are fed up with conservative Republicans\u2019 predation on the poor and middle classes, while Democrats oppose spinelessly.  I congratulate Canada for showing us the way.  They dumped the conservative Harper government, requiring new elections for a new government to be formed.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"26harper\"The vote, engineered by the opposition Liberal Party and backed by two other opposition parties, triggers an election expected in early May.<\/p>\n

The move stemmed from a ruling on Monday that the minority government was in contempt of parliament<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But the Conservatives are thought likely to keep power in a May election.<\/p>\n

The House of Commons adjourned on Friday after the no-confidence motion brought by Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff passed on a 156-145 vote.<\/p>\n

The vote came after a finding by a parliamentary committee led by the opposition parties that Mr Harper’s government had acted in contempt by failing to disclose the full costs of spending on anti-crime programmes, corporate tax cuts and plans to purchase stealth fighter jets<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Mr Harper will ask Governor General David Johnston to dissolve parliament, and following that, an election will be held after a minimum 36 days of campaigning.<\/p>\n

Canadian analysts expect it will be called for the first week in May.<\/p>\n

Nobody was surprised by the result of the confidence vote, says the BBC’s Lee Carter in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Having led two minority governments, Mr [sic] Harper is hoping this time his party will win a majority at the ballot box, our correspondent says.<\/p>\n

The state of the recovering Canadian economy, along with ethics and accountability, are expected to be the main election issues, he adds\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <BBC<\/a>><\/p>\n

If Canadian voters do not oust Harper, they have only themselves to blame.  But by giving us this example, Canada has shown is the way out of our dilemma here.  <\/font>Rachel Maddow compares Canadian conservatives with their more rabid US counterparts and discusses it with Eugene Robinson.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font> <\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Our best path forward is to recall Republicans at the State level and watch that movement swell into a 2012 landslide for progressive Democrats.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I wish that the US has a parliamentary system like Canada.  No impeachment is needed to remove a government from power, just a vote of no confidence.  In such a system, minor parties matter.  Here in the US, voters are fed up with conservative Republicans\u2019 predation on the poor and middle classes, while Democrats […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}