Posted on 12/07/2008 7:57:25 PM PST by St. Louis Conservative
On Oct. 14 Stephen Harper won re-election as Canada's prime minister. In most modern liberal democracies that would be interpreted as a voter preference for Mr. Harper's leadership to continue. But soon after election day, Canada's hard-left New Democratic Party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois Party began plotting to overthrow the PM in Parliament. And last week, with the help of the Liberal Party, they tried to schedule a vote of no-confidence to carry out their plan.
A demonstrator in Vancouver, Dec. 6. Mr. Harper fought back by appealing to the governor general for permission to suspend Parliament until Jan. 26, and on Thursday she granted his request. His survival now depends on whether the anti-Harper coalition holds together over the next seven weeks.
This power grab on the heels of Mr. Harper's victory, though perfectly legal, is one for the record books in staid Canada. Americans, however, may be more interested in what brought the three-party, anti-Harper coalition together. It was an attempt by Mr. Harper to do away with public financing of political parties.
There is a similarity between how Canada's Conservatives finance their campaigns and how U.S. President-elect Barack Obama did it. Both could afford to forgo public money because, for both, voluntary giving amounts to much more.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The headline bears no relation whatsoever to the article written by MS. O’Grady. She doesn’t make that point at all, choosing instead to use the events of the day to lauch into a diatribe about campaign financing.
She fails to point out that in the entire history of Canada, never has a party that has received the largest number of seats in the Parliment been denied the Government. This is precisly what Mr. Dion is attempting to do and as we say around these parts: he has made a stinkly little mess in his bed. Bad boy! Harper appears to have stopped this coup in its tracks and more power to him - if he were to lose it would be like Jefferson Davis succeeding Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency based on a deal done with the government of Mexico.
Does the author of this piece realize that Obama *IS* the liberal candidate right?
McCain took public financing because it’s a core issue to him - but I wouldn’t call him a “conservative” by any stretch.
Also note that Obama had the backing of the “super rich” - and I’m sure that a lot of their money was funneled to him via middlemen in a move a lot of people would call “fraud”.
Furthermore - a lot of Obama’s support came from foreign nations, with no records of who they were or how much they gave.
This article is a crock. Somehow the anti-democratic actions of the left are perfectly alright with these “intellectuals”.
If the shoe were on the other foot, it would be wall-to-wall about how bad Conservatives have been in Canada.
This reminds me of the current attempt here to shut us down, when we begin to criticize 0 and his future administration. We even get harassed by some useful idiots on our side, most living inside the DC beltway and far from America.
No, the article is good. It doesn’t sympathize with the Liberals. The “conservative overreach” refers to Harper attempting to eliminate public financing of campaigns - which I am sure that O’Grady agrees with, as she is a conservative writer. While that could be called an “overreach” by conservatives, it was a stand on principle.
Never let the truth get in the way of a moronic urinalist trying to talk about how evil it is that fringe viewpoints are not allowed to flourish on the taxpayer’s dime.
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