Can somebody give me a crash course on Canadian political parties?

[Hippo_Tron]

Okay I know that the four major ones seem to be the liberals, tories, NDP, and bloc Quebecois.

Liberals seem to be the major liberal party (hence their title), Tories are the major conservative party, NDP seems more to the left than the liberals, and bloc Quebecois I know nothing about.

I know that for awhile there was a scare of the Tories winning the last general election but they did not, however Martin is in power with a coalition government right now. What parties does this coalition government consist of? And even though parties are in a coalition do they still attack each other and each other's leaders?

[CHIMO]

1. Politics 101

Sorry can't give an instant Cole's notes on the subject. But if one is interested this is a good primer.

Larry Zolf - Politics
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/

Scroll down to see all the articles.

[Telly Savalas]

2. It's not really a coalition.

It's just a minority government where the Liberals hope to muster enough support for their agenda one vote at a time. In theory for issues that alienate the Left, they get the Tories to vote with them, and for things that'll piss off the Right, they'll try to garner support from the NDP and the Bloc. Furthermore, if Tory poll numbers show things don't look good for them, they can refrain from bringing down government on a confidence vote, even if that vote is something they are ideologically opposed to.

Your characterization of the parties is pretty much correct. The Bloc is a party that exists only in Quebec and serves to protect and advance the interests of that province. While they don't explicitly advocate separatism, it's something that'd make a lot of their members happy. On the whole, they are pretty left wing.

The Liberals while being a ways to the left by U.S. standards aren't that "liberal" in their Canadian context. For instance, they've ignored their decade-old promise to repeal the regressive GST (a national sales tax). They've slashed funding for housing, transit, etc. In contrast to NDP leader Jack Layton who's been an outspoken critic of Canada's involvement in Bush's Star Wars missile defence initative, Paul Martin has only recently reluctantly flip-flopped and decided to oppose it. While they can be admired for being responsible enough to run big surpluses, the fact that I have on average 10 homeless people a day ask me for change suggests that some of this extra revenue really ought to be spent on social programs. Their election platforms look great, but they seldom live up to their promises. (By the way the provincial Liberal parties vary quite a bit from each other and the feds. Perhaps one of the Vangroovy posters can confrim this, but isn't Gord Campbell's BC Liberal party pretty damn conservative?)

The Tories are an odd lot. Officially they are the Conservative Party of Canada and are a recent merger of the Progressive Conservatives, a fiscally conservative, social liberal party, and the Reform Party (aka the flatearthers). Hence that party has people who support same-sex marriage coexisting with folks who think the Book of Leviticus trumps the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Despite the Liberals being corrupt and two-faced, the CPC got thumped in last year's election partially because members of the latter group opened their mouths on occasion.

That's my 2 cents. I'm sure that someone who actually knows what they're talking about will add more.

[CHIMO]

3. Good Synopses

If I may add this little bit.

The Conservatives were the party against Reciprocity while the Liberals were for this. Of course the Conservatives were branded as being for business. But in the mix at that time one had the Brits and everything was going on a hub and spoke principal. The colonies were at the end of the spokes.

Then along comes a conservative that brings in free trade. Well there is no party opposing this and as a result the deal is not thrashed out for the voters. So in effect one has a policy that has not really been evaluated in the midst of everyday life.

Reciprocity Treaty, 1911


http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts/canadian_studies/english/about/study_guide/debates/reciprocity.html

[Maple]

4. Liberals are middle-of-the-road

Mainstream...centrist...third way...whatever. The only real choice.

NDP and Conservatives are wing parties.

NDP the left-wing, Conservatives the right-wing.

Neither stand much chance of ever being government.

Even with a Liberal 'scandal' underway, nobody wants either of these wing parties in government...so we are left with a one-party system.

The Conservatives used to be a legitimate alternative to the Liberals, but then they went neo-con, or Republican lite...so they're no longer a choice for the vast majority.

So it's either Liberals for years, or minority govts for years.

And minority govts are a pain in the ass, because nothing gets done, and we have constant threats to have another useless election.

Useless because the Liberals are still the only real choice.

We need a new party. Sans baggage, progressive, and a competant genuine alternative to the ruling Liberals.

[iverglas]

5. and once again, the overweening arrogance of the Liberal

Liberals are middle-of-the-road
Mainstream...centrist...third way...whatever. The only real choice.

It's amazing how where the "middle of the road" is depends on where one decides to put the road. Run the road down the right-hand side of the map, and the middle of the road will indeed be in the middle of the road, but it won't be very close to the middle of the map.

And it's downright astounding how, if the federal Liberals are "the only real choice", I've never once chosen them. I guess I've just been blind all these years.

Neither stand much chance of ever being government.

Are there no Liberals who remember 1984? -- the election of 1984, that is.

One might even advise them to cast their minds back to the election of 1993, for a bit of an object lesson to any party that thinks its fortunes can't change rather suddenly.

Even with a Liberal 'scandal' underway, nobody wants either of these wing parties in government...so we are left with a one-party system.

"Nobody"? So I and everyone I respect who vote for my "wing party", and the assorted Albertans and fellow travellers over in that other wing, are chopped liver?

We need a new party. Sans baggage, progressive, and a competant genuine alternative to the ruling Liberals.

Gosh. I wonder what the NDP is. Or conversely, why yet a fifth party might be likely to get elected, and what it might be that would produce this miraculous event?


Ya can't always get what ya want. Me, I don't want the Liberals. Never have, never will. But I knew that they were corrupt decades before this particular scandal, and I knew that a majority of my fellow Canadians were either too stupid or easily led, or too self-interested, to care. If that stupidity/blindess or self-interest can be manipulated into a Conservative government, things will pretty predictably be worse than they are with the Liberals in power. So I don't want the Liberals, but I don't want not the Liberals if that means the Conservatives. If I have to be governed by the party selected by people not bright or critical or honest enough to elect a good government, I'll settle for the less bad government.

De-selecting the Liberals would pretty much amount to cutting off our noses to spite our faces, in the present conjuncture. But the fact that something is the lesser of two bads hardly makes it good.

[Maple]

18. Sorry, after 60 years in Opposition

you should know better.

And I said a NEW party...not a 19th or 20th century leftover.

And all of them are that...but Liberals are moderate and middle of the road. NDP is leftwing, and that's why they've never gotten anywhere. Anymore than the rightwing will.

To get anywhere in Canadian elections you need either Quebec or Ontario, preferably both.

Quebec has the Bloc as an alternative, and after 5 horrible years of the NDP's Bob Rae government, Ontario sure as hell won't vote for the NDP federally.

[iverglas]

20. and yet

I am in Ontario, and I have an NDP MP. How can that be??

Liberals are moderate and middle of the road.

"Middle of the road". As I did say, I have no doubt that they appear that way to someone standing on the road but refusing to notice how close the right side of that road is to the right side of the map, and what a huge great expanse there is over there on the left, off the road they have arbitrarily laid out.

"Moderate". What a great big dumb word. Does "moderate" mean only a couple of million children living in poverty, and not ten million? How many million children living in poverty can a party's policies produce before the party and its policies stop being "moderate"? Is a couple of million a "moderate" number? Is it okay if their poverty is only "moderate" poverty?

What would be "moderately" corrupt -- one scandal a year? A decade? Successfully concealing one's corruption most of the time?

Moderate: "avoiding extremes". Ah. So it must be "extreme" to think that children should not live in poverty, and governments should not use public monies to line the governors' pockets, or use the tax laws to create hidey-holes for their money. Just so's we know, eh?

[Maple]

21. There are some Conservative MPs too

and yet, Ontario is overwhelmingly Liberal.

Vote for whomever you like, rant about whatever you like, but bear in mind that to the majority of Ontarians...and Canadians in general...the NDP is considered leftwing and unelectable.

60 years and counting.

[IntravenousDemilo]

6. There are no more federal Tories...

...at least with representation in Parliament. The Conservative Party is not made up of Tories, but the neocon, socially backward Alliance after co-opting the bottom half of the Progressive Conservative name through a particularly shady deal. The entire party is based on a lie and a broken agreement. Joe Clark, for instance, is a Tory, but not a member of the Conservative Party. The former (and soon to be future) Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was, and will be, socially liberal and otherwise pragmatic.

[Joel]

7. Now that’s an ignorant statement if their ever was one.

The conservatives that got elected last election came mostly from the west where the Reform party was the only game in town. The MP's east of Manitoba are generally more moderate, old PC types. When Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic Provinces elect CPC MP's this time they will be far closer to PC than Reform.

The party was a merger not a take over. You can't expect the new party to get a huge influx of PC members from Alberta if they weren't there before the merge.

[IntravenousDemilo]

8. Yes, well, listen, I was there...

...at the last Progressive Conservative leadership convention, and I know exactly what went on. I also shudder to admit that I later had dinner with a group of people which included Craig Chandler, and I am perfectly aware of Stephen Harper's involvement in a leadership race for a party to which he didn't belong -- I heard it from Chandler himself.

I was also at nomination meetings for the delegates that decided whether this hostile takeover would go through, and in fact was a candidate myself. In my riding, slightly less than half of the members voted for the "NO" slate. But do you suppose the delegates apportioned democratically? No. It was set up by the party brass (the majority of whom were "YES" people) as a winner-takes-all affair, so 100 per cent of the delegates in our riding voted for the takeover. What's more, this happened after the Alliance party swamped the PCs with 40,000 new "members" from their own party in the month immediately preceding the vote.

When the Alliance-Conservatives say that 95 per cent of the PC membership voted to combine the two parties, they conveniently forget to mention that what they really mean is that 95 per cent of the oddly chosen delegates voted for it.

[Joel]

9. So your solution is

take your ball and go home? You didn’t want the merge and your side lost. We have disproportionate power in terms of policy in the new party. If you think the party is too far to the right (you’ll have to help me on this one if you a PC before) it’s very easy to get delegates you like to go to the AGM.

As for the Craig Chandler thing… Craig Chandler is crazy and any self respecting former PC knows that.

[IntravenousDemilo]

10. No, my solution is

to help re-establish the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada as a moderate alternative to the corrupt governing party, to sow confusion and despair in the ranks of the Alliance-Conservatives, and to give me someone I can vote for. They also have illegally withheld $70,000 from David Orchard from the last PC campaign, money given by people like me to his campaign, and which is now being used to help people I despise. So they're thieves as well, go figure!

Yes, Craig Chandler is crazy, and I had dismissed his talk as a bunch of hoo-hah, but his boasts rang true later, once I pondered them, and especially after I did a little snooping. I have some eyes and ears in the new party.

If I have a hand in destroying the current Conservative incarnation and making politics a little bit more honest, I'll be a happy man. I'd do some work on the Liberal party, too, but I've never been a member and don't know anybody there, and besides, after being in power this long, they're far too corrupt for me to do anything about it.

[Joel]

12. I don't think we're too far apart then.

I'm not thrilled about the overall mood in the party right now. I do get the sense it's going to be tough to keep the moderating gains we've made. I do hope one of us succeeds because if the Alliance folks get to much control then I might need to join you on the outside.

[IntravenousDemilo]

13. You're more than welcome to join us

Watch this space. There are, um, plans in the works, and things are moving as quickly as possible under the circumstances. We'll reduce the neocons to a rump -- which is, when I think of it, sort of appropriate considering the kind of people they are.

[achtung_circus]

14. Would you describe yourself

as a David Orchard PC?

He at least tells you where he stands, and is not banging Belinda.

[IntravenousDemilo]

15. Yup, that's what I am, all right

David is a straight-up guy who is deeply passionate, but who keeps his passions in check. He also doesn't trumpet his religious opinions for all to hear, which is refreshing. I didn't agree with him re his traditional stance towards marriage, but I think I've been able wear him down on that one, and I'm basically in agreement with him over his other positions. Have you read "The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism"? It says where he stands quite nicely. If you read it, you might get a little angry, and not at him, either.

[achtung_circus]

16. Nope, haven't read it,

but will check my library. My UEL family fought against American expansionism twice, American Revolution and 1812. I trust them about as far as I can throw a piano.

[IntravenousDemilo]

17. If you can't find it in the library...

...here's where you can go for ordering information and a blurb -- the Orchard website. Stompin' Tom Connors thinks it should be required reading for "the proud Canadian", and he ain't bad at all.

http://www.davidorchard.com/online/2do-index.html

[Spazito]

19. Thanks for this information!

It was always my contention that the Reform/Alliance party perpetrated a 'hostile takeover' by having it's members take out PC memberships before the vote and now you have confirmed it. Peter MacKay is swill as is Harper and their neocon, repub lite party will never be accepted by the majority of Canadians.

I think we need a real opposition and very much miss the PC party, the one that existed before Brian Mulroney became leader. I hope you are able to form a true Tory party again.

[Wat_Tyler]

11. Be careful with the definition of liberal, though.

The Canadian Liberals are liberals in the English tradition, not in the US sense of the word - there is quite a difference between the two points.

[Spazito]

22. Canadians, for the most part, are centrists, imo

We support social programs AND fiscal responsibility. The NDP will need to convince Canadians that they, too, believe in balancing the budget while providing social programs before they have a hope of winning a federal election. They have yet to do that, unfortunately.

Liberals in Canada are centrists, that lean left or right depending on the temperature of Canadians on specific issues.

The faux Conservative Party is really an extreme right wing party although they would be considered repub lite in comparison to the current neocon/repub party in the US. I expect, in the near future, that the right will, again, split into two parties with a new Torie party consisting of those old Tories that didn't agree with the hostile takeover of their party.

The Greens are not a factor in federal government but do manage to bleed votes from the NDP in Provincial elections in provinces such as B.C.

[Maple]

23. I'd agree

with that assessment.

[Lautremont]

24. I wonder how many provinces the NDP will have to govern with

"fiscal responsibility" before the nation takes notice? I suppose they haven't always performed this flawlessly, but, speaking as a Manitoban, I'm pretty happy with them.

[Spazito]

25. It's a good question

In two big provinces, B.C. and Ontario, they did an extremely poor job of it and, with those two being 'big' provinces, they tend to be used as examples but that's only half of the equation, imo. What the NDP leader has to do is show where he will pay for any of the new programs he would promise or additions to a current program. There is a real irony in that Mulroney just about destroyed this country financially, very much like bush is doing to the US now, yet I don't see Harper being hounded as to how the faux Conservatives will change how the Cons have a habit of taking Canada into deficit positions.