Political Parties Are Coalitions

 

Late last year Canada's federal minority Conservatives were shaking in their boots because after their economic statement which attacked the opposition parties access to government money the Conservatives were blind sided by the opposition parties coalition agreement which included the Liberal, NDP and the Bloc. This meant that the government was going to fall when the budget, a non-confidence motion would be voted for six weeks after the federal election. Non-confidence means that the House of Commons Member of Parliament or MPs

 

The opposition parties were confident that the Governor General would let the coalition form then ext government as opposed to subjecting the people in Canada to another expensive election.

 

When the Prime Minister realized that he was on his way out of office he quickly assembled his spin-doctors to write speeches on how coalitions were bad for Canada especially when it included the BLOC a separatist party that want to have the province of Quebec pull out of confederation. The Prime Minister also had an emergency meeting with his caucus or Conservative MPs and told them to get the message of this coalition trying to forcefully take over the government to all ridings that they will be there to defend the integrity of this great country from the evil coalition.

 

In order to save the country from this impending disaster the Prime Minister had one more option available to him so he went to the Governor General and asked that the House of Commons be perouged or shut down for a couple of months so cooler heads can prevail. The Prime Minister's request was granted and he went on to change the budget to satisfy all MPs.

 

Canadians vote for one MP in the riding that they live.

 

Canadians have been voting in coalition governments since the early days and the main coalition parties are the Liberal, NDP, Conservative and BLOC a Quebec coalition and other smaller coalitions to numerous to mention.

 

Paid members of the parties select leaders of coalitions through a leadership convention.

 

During an election campaign, candidates go door to door to let everyone know which coalition they represent and they give out information with their names in big letters so the people won't forget.

 

When a Canadian goes into vote the ballot has a list of names with no party affiliations.

 

The coalition that gets the most seats elected form the new government.

 

When an elected MP gets dissatisfied with their coalition that MP can leave the coalition and either join another coalition or sit as an independent MP, this is what is referred to as "Crossing the floor."

 

 Usually when the coalition gets more than 50% of the elected seats they form a majority government which means that if all the opposition members voted against the government on a piece of legislation it would be passed because they don't have enough seats to overturn it.

 

In a minority government non-confidence will always be a threat.

 

Tibor Stein