May 11, 2005

Fall of the Government of Canada?!?
In short -not yet.
Last night there was a vote held, which the government lost. Because the vote wasn`t one of confidence, it doesn`t mean that the government has to dissolve. (However, the opposition insists that it was a vote of confidence). The vote was for a report going to a committee, and the committee (majority Liberals and NDP) probably won`t adopt the report. A vote of confidence is only for budget bills, bills that the Government declares of confidence, or bills dealing with the Constitution. The amendment voted upon last night wasn`t for any of these types of bills.
Today we got to ask questions to the Clerks of the House of Commons and the Senate, which was a lot more interesting than it sounds! Of course, we asked about the vote last night. They said what I just wrote, but in a lot more detail.
However, there`ll be a vote of confidence next week (May 18th) on the Government Budget. If the government looses that vote, then it could fall, and an election called (assuming that the Governor General doesn`t try to get the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois to form a government).
The President of Mali visited Parliament today, so there were Mali flags flying with the Canadian ones on Confederation Boulevard. Unfortunately I didn`t get to see him enter Parliament, because I had to get back to the training session (I missed him by 20 minutes).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

these are interesting times, it must be great to be in the thick of things.

Stephen said...

Yah, it`s been really interesting to see things happen from the inside, and see how people working in and on the Hill react to the changing situation. The other cool thing is that a lot of people here know a lot politically (unlike back home), so I can actually have intellectual political conversations and not bore people to death!
I think that the budget will pass on May 19th (I want to go to the vote, but I`ll be giving tours of Parliament until 6:00 that night), because the NDP wants it to pass. We`ll see what happens after that though...

Anonymous said...

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Take the quiz :)

I find politics interesting in a warped sort of way.