Posted on 04/27/2005 10:42:52 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Canada's main opposition Conservative Party moved in for the kill on Wednesday, saying it would try to quickly topple the country's fragile minority Liberal government, which has been damaged badly by a corruption scandal.
If Conservative leader Stephen Harper succeeds in bringing down Prime Minister Paul Martin's 10-month-old government, Canada would likely be set for a June 27 election. Polls show the Conservatives have a narrow lead over the Liberals, who have been in power since November 1993.
The Liberals have been in serious trouble since an inquiry into a spending scandal heard allegations that Liberal Party members in Quebec had demanded kickbacks in exchange for lucrative government contracts.
Harper can either try to defeat the government over its budget or press for a motion of non-confidence to be presented to Parliament. The Conservative caucus will hold an emergency meeting on Monday night to consider strategy.
Martin struck a deal with the left-leaning New Democratic Party on Tuesday to boost spending and defer some planned corporate tax cuts in return for NDP support of the government's budget, a development Harper said was disgusting.
"It's the most disgraceful thing I've seen in all my years on Parliament Hill.... As soon as we get back, I will be asking our caucus to put this government out of its misery at the earliest possible opportunity," Harper said in a televised speech in Amherstburg, Ontario.
Although the Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Quebecois have just enough votes to defeat the combined forces of the Liberals and the New Democrats, the margin is so narrow that the final result would most likely depend on the votes of three independent legislators.
Three non-confidence motions are winding their way through the machinery of Parliament and the earliest they are likely to be voted on by the House of Commons is May 18 or 19, paving the way for a late June election.
The deal between Martin and the New Democrats would delay tax cuts for large business and boost government spending by C$4.6 billion ($3.7 billion) over two years.
The deal was sharply criticized by the business community. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce called the agreement "a crass political act," while financial analysts said it would undermine markets' faith in Canada.
But Martin -- who as finance minister in the 1990s eliminated a large budget deficit -- said the deal was fiscally responsible and brushed off the notion that he had swung to the left to keep power.
"I have not changed," he told Reuters in an interview.
Martin set up a public inquiry under Judge John Gomery last year to get to the bottom of the spending scandal, which stemmed from a federal sponsorship program aimed at countering separatism in French-speaking Quebec.
Martin has vowed to punish those responsible for any wrongdoing, but the evidence presented to the inquiry so far has been little short of disastrous for the Liberals.
"I think that obviously what's happening in the Gomery Commission is having an effect.... But I've accepted my responsibility to deal with it, and I'm going to clean it up," Martin told Reuters.
The scandal has also boosted support for separatism in Quebec, which has reached its highest level in more than seven years, according to an opinion poll released on Wednesday.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Throw out the Al Qanadians in Canookistan now !
The elections might produce a Conservative-Bloc government that will dissolve the union.
Uh, Canada is constitutionally a confederation, rather similar to the first US government (1783-1789). The difference between a confederation and a union is that, in theory (theory having long since been discarded by Ottawa, btw, but that's for another thread), each member state of a confederation is supposed to be CONSIDERABLY more sovereign unto itself vis-a-vis the ''national'' government than is a state in the US' type of 'Federal' union.
A decent government in Canada? I'll believe it WHEN I see it!
We can always "PipeDream" of a better future for Canada. Once Bush retires from the white house, we can have him take over these silly little governments on rotation:(canada/france/germany/china/(insert country here) and turn them around.
Time for a little saber rattling by our Brownie Troops, I see an invasion on the Northern border to take advantage of the chaos!
Nah. no need to. They fall apart, we'll just buy the place
I am sorry but when has liberals cared about corruption?
Steve Van Doorn wrote:
I am sorry but when has liberals cared about corruption?
--> They care when they get caught or can't do it any more. It's like a drug for them
Ditto - putting a Mark Latham as the new PM will probably be seen as a rightward shift from a majority of sheeples aka Canadians.
Whichever province looks like it could join the United States, I am going to move to. I'm sick of the scary lefties up here.
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