Friday, November 28, 2008

Scott Brison on what will happen

Scott Brison gave this interview to the Globe and Mail today on what will happen in parliament.

I just took a look at some Blogging Tories sites and I am shocked by their weak understanding of Canadian democracy. Don't they teach this stuff in school anymore? I guess the Conservative's understanding of Canadian civics is only matched by their understanding of the economy.

There are 305 elected members in the House of Commons. In our democracy, you either find the support of more than half of those elected representatives to form a government and pass legislation or you do not and are defeated. There is not alot of ambiguity about that.

You have to work with the other parties in a minority. Harper chose not to. What I find bizarre about all this is: the Conservatives seem surprised.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

309

Anonymous said...

308

Aaron said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Aaron said...

yes, anonymous hehe sorry

And in in my last post I wrote "intellectully" which should have been "intellectoolly" My apologies. ;)

Hishighness said...

Conservatives' view of democracy and bipartisanship is for the opposition to do what they tell them to do. Just like the Republicans in the states.

Yappa said...

Just before Harper's statement, I heard the Con spokesman on Mike Duffy use the exact same phrases as Harper did in his statement, along the lines of overturning the will of the people, undemocratic, opposition hungry for power. It's a pretty weak argument.

I agree with the Liberal spokesman who was also on Mike Duffy, who said that the PM looked panicked. He looked like he'd been crying, or at the least seriously sleep-deprived. He was reading his teleprompter in a sort of daze.

I think all the Liberal spokespeople, including the leadership candidates, are handling this perfectly. I don't get the NDP demanding an NDP finance minister though... is that for real???

Aaron said...

Hishighness,

Sometimes I really doubt their committment to democracy, what is that? What happened to Canadian conservatism? And I wonder about the depth of cynicism in this party when they spread willfully untruths about our democratic system and the sometimes complex compromises that have been made to allow our government to function.

Aaron said...

Yappa,

Yeah, I think that the Harper people cannot deal with surprises and this has totally surprised them. That speaks to their ability to deal with situational problems. But why are they so surprised at how things have turned out? Could they really be that misinformed about Canada?

Hishighness said...

Yeah, giving the NDP Finance is a non starter in my book, they can have anything else as far as I'm concerned besides Finance and the PMO.

I'd be ok with Co-Ministers though, has that ever been done?