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My commiserations, fellow Canadians.
At least it's a minority.
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Canadian elections.

OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the first major world leader to face voters since the global financial meltdown, led his Conservative Party to victory in Tuesday's election but was forecast to fall short of a majority in Parliament.

The election agency reported on its Web site that the Conservatives had won at least 142 of Parliament's 308 seats in early vote counting, an improvement over the 127 seats the party won in its 2006 election victory.

But, based on results obtained directly from election officials, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. predicted the Conservative Party would not win the 155 seats needed to govern on its own, forcing it to again rely on opposition support to pass budgets and legislation.

Harper had called elections early in hopes of getting his party a majority, but the Conservatives expressed pleasure in expanding their number of seats.

"Every other incumbent government in the Western world is in serious political trouble with the economic situation," Conservative legislator Jason Kenny said. "Ours is probably the only one that could be re-elected — let alone with an increased mandate."

The party winning the most seats generally forms the government, with its leader becoming prime minister. The opposition parties could unite and topple Harper if they won enough seats for a majority, but analysts said that was unlikely because the parties have no tradition of forming such coalitions.

The opposition Liberals have typically been the party in power, forming the government for most of Canada's 141 years. But the left-of-center vote was divided among four parties, giving an edge to the Conservatives.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion's campaign was hindered by his unpopular plan to tax all fossil fuels except gasoline and by perceptions he is a weak leader. A former professor from French-speaking Quebec, Dion also suffered in other regions because he frequently mangles English grammar and his accent makes him hard to understand.

My condolences. Actually, a minority government is good because no one party has too much power and things can only be done by concensus. It just sucks that the biggest minority is them.

QUIT COMPLAINING, YOU COULD HAVE GOT STUCK WITH OBAMN AND COMPANY

Gympy- Jan, after all the votes were counted they had more seats than the other parties? Haha.

Well, if we had proportional representation, they wouldn't have. Left leaning parties got more votes.But what is the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals- on economics, healthcare, etc.It's not just between the Conservatives and the Liberals. There's 5 different parties in the mix.


I wish we had more than two strong political parties....Babs, yeah, well some of the parties aren't that strong. It's like we have Ralph Nadar at every election. Great ideas but not enough of a support base, so there's vote splitting like crazy. We really need some proportional representation.
A minority government means they got more seats than any one other party, but the total combined of the other parties is more than the "winning" party got.I'll have to read up on your Prime Minister Stephen Harper when I have time.  Still trying to read up on the British PM.[QUOTE=Gimpy-a-gogo]Babs, yeah, well some of the parties aren't that strong. It's like we have Ralph Nadar at every election. Great ideas but not enough of a support base, so there's vote splitting like crazy. We really need some proportional representation.
A minority government means they got more seats than any one other party, but the total combined of the other parties is more than the "winning" party got.[/QUOTE] Sorry Jan....the idea of typing all that out was incredibly daunting. All the different parties have their platforms on their websites. Unfortunately the conservative parties are notorious for saying they're going to do one thing when they have a completely different agenda. It always takes the voters a while to clue in, then they are outraged. We have a leadership crisis.Also, it's interesting to note that when Harper got in on the last minority government, they passed a law with fixed election dates, and then immediately broke their own law. The specualtion is Harper wnated the election before a:) the Republicans lost power in the US and b:) the economic excrement hit the air conditioning.
There are actually people trying to get the election annulled in the courts because this law was blatantly broken. Probably won't get anywhere, of course, although that is hardly justice being served.Well, the numbers are coming in and there was such a low voter turnout and our non-proportionate system is so extreme it turns out the Conservatives got in with only 22% of the eligible vote. 22%! It's flabbergasting. I wish we had a better "get out the vote" thing going on. And proportionate representation.Too bad about low voter turnout. Gimpy isn't that a problem inherent to having more than 2 strong parties? Most times you wll not get a true majority to vote the way one party wants... There are of course problems with a 2 two party system. I've often wished the parties here were a bit more open minded when selecting their candidates...  José2008-10-18 05:42:30We didn't used to always have just two parties.  I think this is the longest we've gone with the same two tho. Jose, it wouldn't be if we had proportionate representation. There used to be more but all the really right wing parties formed coalitions. I guess if the left leaning and centrist parties did the same we would end up with a 2 party system, but I just don't see that happening any time soon.Well, 22% isn't the whole place.  Maybe the libs will be able to push thru proportional govt. because of this. If you think about it, we have the same problem. Look at congress and our governors, they rarely truly represent a majority. Yes, we have the two major parties but those are divided big time into smaller groups...Look at the Republican party, there are many nuts that can hardly be called conservative. Then there are the Ultraconservative which are really radicals in their approach to conservatism. I am sure the same could be said about the Dems though I am not as versed on them... Agreed - I had a history class which had a chart of how the different parties evolved about every generation.  It was eye opening.  In the US, we rarely report on the alternative parties even tho lately they've been gaining ground every election.  That's a lot of disenfranchised people, IMHO. I still want to see the Conservative Party website.Here it is, although it contains mostly vague ideas and not a lot of solid information:

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/5317/

MOst of it is just bashing the other parties----I wish my fellow Canadians would get tired of "negative campaigning the way it seems some Americans have. I find watching what they do is a lot more informative than listening to what they say (although I do that, too).Gimpy-a-gogo2008-10-19 13:55:40Sarcozy was in Canada Friday.  Now he is in the U.S., talking about the worldwide economy!!!!  Hope it helps.Still interested in Prime Minister Harper.Tory minority in jeopardy as opposition talks coalition
Unwilling to accept fiscal package, Liberals consider governing with NDP

MICHAEL VALPY , JANE TABER and DANIEL LEBLANC AND STEVEN CHASE
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 28, 2008 at 1:30 AM EST

Stephen Harper's six-week-old minority government is already in danger of falling, with the Liberals warning that the Prime Minister has four days to change “unacceptable” elements of Thursday's economic fiscal package.

The other three parties in the House of Commons responded scathingly to the government's economic statement Thursday for its failure to offer economic stimulus. And they were furious at the Prime Minister's brinksmanship in linking the statement with an attempt to end public financing of political parties.

Liberal MPs were locked in meetings Thursday night, struggling to determine what to do in the lead-up to a vote on the package on Monday that could topple the government. Their options are to fight another election mere weeks after the last one with a lame duck leader, or join forces with the New Democratic Party in an attempt to form a coalition government.

And etc:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081128.wfiscalparties28/BNStory/politics/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20081128.wfiscalparties28 [QUOTE=JasmineRain]
              

But, based on results obtained directly from election officials CBC predicted the Conservative Party would not win the 155 seats needed to govern on its own, forcing it to again rely
on opposition support to pass budgets and legislation.

                      [/QUOTE]

The PM is only the leader as long as he has the confidence of the opposition parties. Because he has lost it, he has no democratic right ot lead the country.Gimpy-a-gogo2008-12-06 14:57:00IDK.. maybe i am use to our "system" but that is hard for me to comprehend....  why be allowed to elect someone only to have others say:  Ooops.. too bad.. you're outta here!
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