Well, we're in the middle of an election (I think you knew that), so things are rather up in the air.
The government fell on a confidence motion in early December, and with the election set for January 23, this is one of the longest campaigns we've had in decades.
Which is probably why, despite muckraking ads from the Conservatives (and there is a lot of muck to rake), all the parties promising the sun, moon and stars (in the appropriate colours of the party's political philosophy, of course), and Liberal threats that the country will either fall apart or become exactly like the U.S. if anyone but them forms the next government, the polls have scarcely budged since the writ was dropped.
Now that the holidays are over, we're going to have a free-for-all, and things will be incredibly volatile - at least that's my guess.
What will happen? My best guess right now is that we'll have another minority government, probably Conservative, but that enough NDP members will be elected that a Liberal-NDP alliance (with occasional Bloc Quebecois support) in the opposition will make their governemnt hellish and possibly rather short.
What might shift that to a prediction of a very slight Conservative majority is the progress of a current RCMP investigation into whether there was a leak in the Finance department about a change in regulations that might have resulted in a major insider trading scandal.
But really, anything could happen (except an NDP majority, of course)- though I think a Liberal majority is highly unlikely, because of the situation in Quebec, where the Bloc is likely to pick up seats from the Liberals, who don't have any seats to lose. It's going to be fun over here for the next three weeks, that's for sure.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-01-02 08:54 pm (UTC)The government fell on a confidence motion in early December, and with the election set for January 23, this is one of the longest campaigns we've had in decades.
Which is probably why, despite muckraking ads from the Conservatives (and there is a lot of muck to rake), all the parties promising the sun, moon and stars (in the appropriate colours of the party's political philosophy, of course), and Liberal threats that the country will either fall apart or become exactly like the U.S. if anyone but them forms the next government, the polls have scarcely budged since the writ was dropped.
Now that the holidays are over, we're going to have a free-for-all, and things will be incredibly volatile - at least that's my guess.
What will happen? My best guess right now is that we'll have another minority government, probably Conservative, but that enough NDP members will be elected that a Liberal-NDP alliance (with occasional Bloc Quebecois support) in the opposition will make their governemnt hellish and possibly rather short.
What might shift that to a prediction of a very slight Conservative majority is the progress of a current RCMP investigation into whether there was a leak in the Finance department about a change in regulations that might have resulted in a major insider trading scandal.
But really, anything could happen (except an NDP majority, of course)- though I think a Liberal majority is highly unlikely, because of the situation in Quebec, where the Bloc is likely to pick up seats from the Liberals, who don't have any seats to lose. It's going to be fun over here for the next three weeks, that's for sure.