Centrerion Canadian Politics

Analysis of a Conservative Majority vs a Conservative Minority

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Conservative majority or Conservative minority? If Canadians opt for a Conservative government on January 23rd, here's what moderates can look forward to, and what the center might apprehend.

• Majority Pros:
  

1. Guaranteed GST tax break. The Bloc wants specific items targeted, while the Libs and NDP oppose it outright.
   
2. Passage of the Federal Accountability Act. I have the impression it might be controversial, and people will criticize it as going too far. IMHO, it's a good plan, and deals with the revolving-door policy of government officials and lobbying groups.
   
3. Relative to a minority government, we'd have some stablity.
4. A budget not aimed at winning votes, or that shows artificial surpluses. Consider the case of immigration minister Joe Volpe who found 700 million in November, but could only muster 72 million in April. Expressing the Liberal approach, Liberal MP Raymonde Folco said of the 72 vs 700: it doesn't matter when it was done, simply that it was done. The immigrants and their families, who linger for ages in a slow and ineffectual process -something Folco herself recognized- didn't mind waiting from April to November for the extra bucks, I'm sure.
5. We don't need to go back to the polls in a year and a half.
6. Kyoto being an ineffective treaty based on political correctness, a CPC majority can scrap the BS agreement signed in Japan and proceed to really work on protecting the environment. I'd personally care for them to adopt the Green Party's free market idea of removing subsidies from oil and energy companies, and instead tax these companies on their pollution. They could just pass the buck to consumers, but ultimately, intelligent companies would spend on green technology to save on taxes. Doing this while passing the buck to the consumer increases profits.
   

• Minority Pros:
  

1. A greater margin of error in protecting gay marriage. A majority government with a free vote on the definition of marriage would keep it as it currently is, but a minority makes this even more certain.
2. The government has to compromise with the opposition (thought this can be said of any minority government). I think particularly of the dossier of crime, and wouldn't be surprised to see the opposition slip through a few loonies to dealing with what Jack Layton's introduced into our national lingo as the "causes of crime." Ultimately, our justice holds each person accountable for their own actions, which I think is fair, but the problem is that our environments have an influence on us which we don't hold anyone accountable for.
   
3. The social policies of the NDP are more likely to get signed into law. The Dippers are clueless outside social policy, but they do know their social policies down pat.
4. We go back to the polls in a year and a half. The intervening time is like a tryout for the CPC, which, if failed, leads us back to another minority government as people choose between so-so governance; a Liberal party in a 'transition' or 'building' year, as we say in sports; and separatism (or Jack Layton for PM... haha, yeah, right). Oh, and since it'd be a minority, another vote a year and a half later. If the CPC passes, they get a majority (maybe).
   

Though I listed a few more pros than cons, if the CPC do win on January 23rd, I'd like to see them get a percentage of seats in the low 50s ... say 52-55% would be about right. Enough to do the important stuff, not so much that they can ram anything through and mute the opposition. Stability with checks and balances.
I'm not endorsing the CPC, so we're clear on this. But if they should win, 52-55% of the seats in the House of Commons is the ideal situation, where I'm concerned.

posted by lecentre @ 1:49 p.m.