Canadians were told by the Prime Minister that parliament had become dysfunctional and he had to hold an election to obtain a manedate for the Canadian government to be able to govern with authority and in accordance with the wishes of the voters of the country. So it was that an election was held back in October and it returned another minority government. Though the Liberals were reduced in numbers and the Conservatives gained a little but they do not have enough seats in the House of Commons to be able to carry out legislation that that party holds near and dear to its heart.
You really have to think this through to realise that some things are just meant to be. The election was clouded with American issues from their presidential election and the government itself ran a campaign attempting to run down the opposition rather than set forth anything that they wanted to carry out. If fact the Government was so embarassed about its party platform it did not release it until a mere six days before the election. By then I had already voted.
There was nothing in the government's package to offer to the public and the Liberals with their complex and confusing "green shift" made the votes simply pass on this one. Besides, polls had shown before the election was even called that were there to be an election the results would be similar to the house already sitting. There was no excitement in this election and the voters by huge numbers simply didn't bother.
So here we have an election with extremely low voter turn out and the votes split between three national parties, the will-o-the-wisp Green party and Quebec's Bloc. The government of today is in power with the support of much less that one in every four potential voters. Hardly a manedate to do a single thing.
This brings us to this afternoon when the Governor General read the speech from the throne, with its catchy show biz title "Protecting Canada's Future." One of the sad jokes about the present Prime Minister is when ever he comes up with a slogan it almost certainly means the exact opposite. In his last election he said he would "stand up for Canada" which turned out to mean, do whatever the United States wants. Now that he is protecting Canada's future I would suggest we are all in deep trouble.
Perhaps the most disheartening thing about this situation in which we Canadians find ourselves is that despite the election and the thousands of promises made nothing has changed. The speech itself was the sort of thing a minority government would put together. It really can't do much because it requires the support of some of the opposition to do anything. After this speech was delivered today the leader of the New Democratic Party said it was not a speech he and his party could support while the Bloc echoed that feeling. The Liberals as they have for the past three years wimped out and said there was nothing substantial in the speech but nothing that warranted the government being thrown out of office for.
As I said, there is nothing new in this new parliament and certainly nothing about protecting Canada's future. The government is making sure that everyone understands that all those promises in the election were just to get elected and for now it looks like Canada is going to have a deficit budget. Wait a minute, during the campaign the Prime Minister was urging people to buy stocks and get in on the bargains and that Canada's economy might suffer a slow down, but nothing like a recession. Its a good thing the prime minister doesn't give up his tale spinning because as a sooth-sayer of his own actions he is a failure.
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