And Stephen Harper says :'power must be earned, it cannot be taken' - well, let me say it isn't power that is earned - it is supposed to be trust & responsibility. 

2nd - Dion tossed this at Harper - every MP in the House has been given a mandate (that word is up for debate around here but let's get the idea) and at the moment, the House (the majority of MPs made of Liberals, NDP & Bloc) does not have confidence in the Conservative Govt.  Harper is only the leader of the Conservatives, and therefore gets to be Prime Minister.  He did not necessarily garner the trust of most voters.

I agree Frommian that people don't understand government & that is a problem.  The ads & campaigns of the past few years have increasingly muddied the expectations of Voters, not to mention the lack of education around this.  But that is not all the schools' fault. It is the fault of parents who act apathetic or spin rhetoric regularly and teach their children a disdain & distrust of government.  Of course, the government is not very good at dispelling such images.  (lots of dis-sing going on here :) )

On the news this morning they had a classroom of junior high school students explaining why a coalition was undemocratic.

I nearly threw up.

YOU'RE KIDDING.

what news channel was this??

CBC Newsworld.

oh good grief. 

Okay, I'll correct myself... the class was having a debate over the government, but two of the clips were kids both saying the coalition was undemocratic (they used that word exactly) and the only other clip was a boy who suggested that the Conservatives were toast.

So it wasn't the whole class.

but if they are debating properly, then they are using facts, one being that it is democratic.  Otherwise it becomes an argument (I"m thinking Monty Python here) and no better than what we usually get from our politicians.  Shame on the teacher & on the news crew.

In addition to that serious problem (and i have noticed even distinguished commentators who don't seem to understand how our system works), you have the problem of people using feelgood words, such as arguing that mps should cooperate.

no, they shouldn't. Some are in opposition. We call it that because they are supposed to oppose the government. it is their opposition which keeps the government reponsive and on its toesl

What the US has dreadfully lacked in the past eight years has been an opposition. If the democrats had shown more courage and integrity to oppose bush, the US might not now be in the terrible mess it is. To cooperate with a government that is going in the wrong direction is not a help for anybody. We need opposition.

graeme

Shame on the politicians, too, for implying it is not democratic. The kids are only repeating their own spin on what they have heard from teachers, parents and the media (advertising works, unfortunately)

You know, I typically try to stay away from hyperbole and exageration. This thing just has me so worked up.

the thing that just kills me is that HARPER HIMSELF tried to form a coalition with the bloc back in 2004!!

why oh why is it all of a sudden so 'undemocratic'?!?!?

That's because they needed people who could speak at the level of Conservative supporters.

Really- we elect Members of Parliament. What they do from then on is their choice, although we can try to influence them. Canada's parliament was originally designed to accomodate multiple parties and even a large number of independants. Later administrations jigged the rules to favour parties - especially the ruling one.

Agreed.  I think we need a Canadian School House Rock.

LOL!! 

and i know EXACTLY who could pull it off, too... either the barenaked ladies or the arrogant worms!! 

man, can you IMAGINE?!?!?

Cocaine and comedy, together at last!

Oh, wait...

good lord, i never said ANYTHING about robin williams...

How 'bout Stompin' Tom?  It would be sure to have a catchy beat.

Cocaine, comedy AND the constitution.

"Well, hello out there, we're on the air, it's confidence vote tonight ...."

LOL!!!

they swarm the tv's like bumblebees....

At this point, all I have to say is thank heavens the Senate hasn't wandered into the fray....

LB

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.     Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)

Got a couple beers ready and I'm going to see what Mr. Failure, the right dishonourable PM, has to say for himself.  I wonder how big the lies will be? 

BWHAHAHA!  Look at that smile.  Watch out Batman, he's got Joker gas!

I copied my post from Michaelle Jean thread:  I just watched.  Did you hear him tonight (7pm) - geez you would think he was Mister Rogers!  He spoke for about 5 minutes.  It was the kind of syrupy speech you hear in American Patriotic movies about aliens destroying mankind.  He listed maybe 10 measures that he is taking on the economy (why didn't he do this last week!??????) and some of them sounds promising, but there was still NO detail and only the promise that we should wait until Jan 27 - nearly 2 months away.  He mentioned automotive innovations, infrastructure money, taking "due diligence" with the Ontario automotive sector issue, Seniors & Rifs etc, incentives for expanding businesses in things like Forestry, and a few other things (my kids were talking).

He basically swung the Bloc issue as this time, this crucial political economic time is the wrong time to work with Separatists (I would imagine he is saying that any other time was ok).    And he pleaded with us to uphold the decision that voters made on October 14.

I'm waiting for the discussion to hit the internet (I dont' have tv).

harper needs to step down.

he has thrown us into this mess, and rather than show anything even close to leadership he has chosen to fan the flames.

he has no idea what is needed to be the leader of our country during a crisis.  and we are in a crisis.

he has proven he is incapable of leadership.  he needs to go.

There was nothing new in what Steven Harper had to say. The points he addressed were already part of his economic statement and those haven't changed, to my understanding.

Discussion about this is lively and interesting at www.rabble.ca/babble.

I have to say though that I took polical science way back when and I think of myself as fairly well read etc etc and didn't know the ins and outs of all of this.  I think that this is wonderful as it is bringing the details of our political system to the general population.  A lot of people think of our system as very much like the Americans and we are not.  I  note that there was a lot of talk last election about proportional rep and how it would be good to have more of a prop rep system.  As it stands if we wanted - if there was the will in the people that we elected - we could have much more of a type of prop rep system as we could instruct our elected reps to form colition governments from the get go.  I was listening on CBC yesterday and a constitutional expert was saying that if the NDP and the Liberals had gone to Madam Jean the day after the last election with a letter indicating that they had formed a colitiion then they would have had the majority of the house and they would have formed the government over the Conversatives.  That is what our system allows for as a matter of course.  This is not a "back room deal" as PM Harper put it.  This would be two parties deciding up front to work together in the open in order to govern.  So if we wanted to have a more democratic and inclusive type of government where the individuals that we elect actually get to be part of the governing party rather than part of the opposition, then all that has to happen is politicians have to learn to be more civil and work together rather than be adversarial.  My understanding is that this is more of a European model and they have had some very successful coalitian governments. 

It's pretty frightening when the Prime Minister doesn't seem to understand it - or if he does he certainly would seem to want to change it based on the foolish statements he's been making.

well, he seemed pretty happy with it when it worked to his advangage...

indeed...

I know that in grade 10, Ontario high school students are required to take a course on civics and career studies (and the credit is a diploma requirement). For the first half of that class, we learned about how the government works. I liked that class. It was an easy class but I came out of it knowing about how our government works and what each party generally stands for. I don't know about the other provinces but I can definitely say that Ontario is doing a satisfactory job imo in educating the youth on the government. Also, since we have to know how the government works by age 16, I think the voting age should be decreased, since 16-year-olds who have taken that course probably know more about Canadian politics than most adult Canadians.

Anyway, about Harper, he's a whore for power and he just wants to control this country for the rest of his life and he doesn't care what he has to do to make sure of that. If he becomes a president, he will have the power to veto whatever he wants, and I don't doubt he will use it. Democracy is a pretty terrible form of government imo but we have it a lot better than the Americans for sure. At least our governor general doesn't veto anything.