Quote:
Originally Posted by calculoso
The system allows for this if confidence in the government has been lost.
In this case, since there hasn't been a budget and really there hasn't been much sitting time since the last election, I'd say it is safe to say there was never any confidence in the government to start with. Right from day 1 after the election, the plans for this were set in motion.
If this was to have happened after 6 months, then fine... but right away after the election? Totally different situation.
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And that's where it gets interesting from my perspective.
I think it's entirely probable that all of the parties foresaw a Conservative minority well in advance of the last election. I think it's also entirely probably that the non-Conservative parties were in discussions with each other during the last Conservative minority. I think it's entirely possible that this coalition was viewed by its member parties as being inevitable, and that they merely needed a window of opportunity to jump through. That window opened when Harper made some rather controversial proposals, including one which was a naked slap in the face to the other parties.
I think, at the very least, Harper's proposal to cut political funding was incredibly badly thought-out, and deserved an extremely harsh response. I didn't think this snowball had that much momentum though.