Politics

[TheHayleyDoll]

Both Obama and McCain wanted to stop illegal immigrants but Obama wanted to make it so that illegal immigrants could become legalized without having to go back to their previous country before applying for legalization.

[AaronShadows]

I so totally agree with that. My country would probably be better off that way. You know, my first best freind was an immigrant. And he got deported. Which is why I'm not inclined to support deportation. -_-

[TheHayleyDoll]

Anyway, I have updates on Canadian Politics... like anyone cares. xD

Actually, it's a MAJOR deal here. People have been talking about it for weeks now. Let me try to get all the facts down here.

~~~

We Canadians just had an election a month and a half ago. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was re-elected by a landslide (at least seat wise.).

Let me explain what to you how Canadian politics work. Canadians do NOT directly vote for our Prime Minister, but we vote for the representative in our area for the party of our choosing. Say I wanted to vote Liberal (which, right now, I would never see myself doing). Instead of voting for Stephan Dion (who did SO TERRIBLY in the last election, he is stepping down after this being his FIRST electoral process. Yes, he did that bad. Last time somebody lost by so much, it was during the Great Depression. -_-) I would vote for, and this isn't actually my area's representative, Mike Longstockings. xD

They they tally the votes for each area/riding. The winner of each area gets a seat in the House of Commons. The lead of the party with the most elected officials becomes Prime Minister.

Anyway, Stephen Harper won with a Minority government (meaning he received less then 50% of those seats, but still enough to win) with a total of something like 143 seats out of a total 308. The main opposition party, the Liberals, had 77 seats I believe, and the NDP had 37 and the Bloc Quebecoise (a party that wants Quebec to separate from Canada) 49 seats. Independants had 2.

Now here's what's going on; Harper wants to pass a Bill that will eliminate Federal funding for each of the parties (including his own). The Bill also has other parts to it, but it's missing a 'stimulus package' - basically he does not want to do anything about the economy before looking it over some more. However, he is giving tax cuts in hopes that people spend the money, but the opposition thinks that's too risky and the people may not choose to spend during these hard economic times.

However, the other parties (mainly the Liberals and NDP - New Democratic Party) want things done NOW, and if they don't get it, they will not vote in favour of the Bill and they will put a vote of "non-confidence" against Harper. So, the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc went behind Harper's back and formed what is called a coalition. A coalition government would mean that they would all work together and overthrow the current Prime Minister.

Harper, not wanting the vote of non-confidence to happen, closed down Parliament until mid-January because if a non-confidence vote were to happen now, they could not have an election since it's been too soon since our last and the coalition would be put into place.

Our Governor General - who is the representative of the Queen - has let Harper disband Parliament for now.

Many people think the Coalition style government is undemocratic. After all, Harper DID win fair and square and had the most votes of one party. Whats the point of a minority government if, together, the other parties can overpower the Prime Minister?

[Silent_Wolf]

I think that's a load of bull. That's essentially them trying to impeach him... just for being fairly voted. -.-

[TheHayleyDoll]

I think they're being sore losers. "Let's all gang up and try to take power!" It seems very... well, stupid. Three different people with different views in charge? Nothing's going to get done. -_-

Harper definitely isn't the best PM we've ever had, but our other choices are absolutely brutal. Stephan Dion, the Liberal Leader, can't even speak English very well. I will give you a linky.

YouTube - Dion *****s up, again, again and again

He did not understand the question, and some people voted for this guy? -_-

[TheHayleyDoll]

Okay, more news. xD First, Stephan Dion is no longer the liberal leader, but now Michael Ignatieff is. It was announced yesterday afternoon. Thank god. I hated Dion. He could speak English in a country where 90% of us fluently speak it. -.-

And second, anybody watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently? Hilarious. He poked fun at Canada again, and I thought it was funny. I'm okay with a little "sibling rivalry" between countries. xD

Here's the link to the show summary thing, from Yahoo Canada (my homepage): "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" tackles Canada's parliamentary crisis. - Yahoo! Canada News

[AaronShadows]

*Slap* Wake up, you old lazy thread!

Well, I came to b*tch about the recession That's going on in Ireland and the rest of the world. Apparently, we're in an economic crisis. That's what the news tells me anyway. >_>

Anyway, I've got mixed feelings about Ireland going into a recession. Apparently, the last time this country was relatively poor crime was low down. You could leave your door open all night an run around without worry.

BUUUT, I resent that I may not be able to visit this forum as much. I love this place! -_-

[Silent_Wolf]

Over here where I live (specifically in my area), things aren't too bad because a lot of our produce is locally grown. Plus, the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia is a major producer of apples of various kinds. That and we've got coal. Lots of it.

I mean, really. Gas is the lowest it's been since 2005. $1.89 a gallon. Okay, we did have a lower one back in ... November? It was $1.65 a gallon, and yes, it did come up a little. But in any case, for some reason it went down and we don't know why. Something about stocks being illegally sold and there being more fuel than we thought.

Who's up for the hydrogen car? >__>;

[Miranda_]

We have a recession going; it's called the Credit Crunch. I wish there could be an election so we can vote that idiot Gordon Brown out of office. -.- He's a total prat; crazy spending is NOT the way to get out of a recession, moron!

[TheHayleyDoll]

Yeah, Canada's in a bit of a recession. The liberals and their coalition are forcing Prime Minister Harper to spend more money to get us out of it. I don't see how that help.

Same, Wolfie. Gas prices here are low. About $0.78 a litre. It was down to $0.64 at one point, which is much lower then the high or $1.36. O_O