Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D. Governor General Rideau Hall 1 Sussex Drive Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1
Excellency,
As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government’s program.
We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority.
Your attention to this matter is appreciated.
Sincerely,
Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P. Leader of the Opposition Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Gilles Duceppe, M.P. Leader of the Bloc Quebecois
Jack Layton, M.P. Leader of the New Democratic Party
Politics: anything to get in power - anything to stay in power.
I'm glad the government has fallen, but I'm angry that none of the parties bothered coming up with a platform that differentiates them in any meaningful way.
"We're not the conservatives" isn't exactly a "policy" that'll draw my vote.
It's interesting that you want to split hairs. Let's play that game. Here's what Stephen Harper said a few days ago,
"Canadians need to understand clearly, without any ambiguity: unless Canadians elect a stable, national majority, Mr. Ignatieff will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois," Harper said. "They tried it before. It is clear they will try it again. And, next time, if given the chance, they will do it in a way that no one will be able to stop."
Did Michael Ignatieff ever propose forming a COALITION with the Bloc?
In 2008, Stephen Harper addressed the nation on television and said,
At a time of global economic instability, Canada’s Government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together. At a time like this, a coalition with the separatists cannot help Canada. And the Opposition does not have the democratic right to impose a coalition with the separatists they promised voters would never happen.
The Opposition is attempting to impose this deal without your say, without your consent, and without your vote. This is no time for backroom deals with the separatists; it is the time for Canada’s government to focus on the economy and specifically on measures for the upcoming budget. This is a pivotal moment in our history.
Do you think that Harper was being truthful when he talked about a COALITION with the Bloc?
Do you think he was being honest when he condemned "backroom deals" with the Bloc?
@Larry Moran, Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment.
"It's interesting that you want to split hairs. Let's play that game. Here's what Stephen Harper said a few days ago,"
I'm not really trying to split hairs. I just wanted to point out that the 2004 letter was in no way supporting a Coalition. You were implying it as such, using This Hour as your proof followed by the letter This Hour quoted. That's less splitting hairs and more pointing out that you were in error by your implication.
"Canadians need to understand clearly, without any ambiguity: unless Canadians elect a stable, national majority, Mr. Ignatieff will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois," Harper said. "They tried it before. It is clear they will try it again. And, next time, if given the chance, they will do it in a way that no one will be able to stop."
"Did Michael Ignatieff ever propose forming a COALITION with the Bloc?"
No, not during this election, nor after the last. What he did do though was sign a formal agreement that created a formal coalition between the Liberals and the NDP with official formal support from the Bloc in 2008. That document is still technically in effect until June.
"Do you think that Harper was being truthful when he talked about a COALITION with the Bloc?"
You're implication is right, Michael Ignatieff has never proposed including the Bloc in an actual Coalition government where he gives ministry positions to a Bloc member. Harper is being a little ambiguous in his claims to support his own partisan agenda.
"Do you think he was being honest when he condemned "backroom deals" with the Bloc?"
Well, I think he was being honest. But is he being a little hypocritical when he himself has made back room dealings with the Bloc? Yes, I think so. Though, I think the context of the particular back room deal he is talking about in that quote adds some credibility to his statement.
Is Harper being a little disingenuous when he says the Liberals will form a Coalition government with the Bloc? Yes. But even if the Bloc is not in the Coalition government, if the Liberals and NDP combined do not have more seats than the Conservatives, and the Liberals and NDP enter into a similar agreement such as the 2008 one, odds are the Bloc will have a little too much power than most Canadians feel comfortable with and Harper is keying into that.
Thank you Babylon5v for the link to the video that shows that Harper was not talking about a coalition in 2004.
I am getting tired of Moran trying to fool us with his comments.
And then trying to wiggle off with a comment about "splitting hairs". I am not sure which is more distasteful. His original falsehood or his trying afterwards to distract from his falsehood.
I just wanted to point out that the 2004 letter was in no way supporting a Coalition.
This is highly disingenuous of you if you know anything about the basics of our government.
Harper was advising the GG, on the fall of the government, to consider another option to dissolution and election. There is only one other option in that case: to turn the government over to the opposition. While strictly possible, that's not a viable option in the absence of a workable coalition structure (what would be the point if Parliament just fell again at the next budget vote?). For you say, after Harper moots the "consultation" of the "opposition parties" to a GG considering the dissolution of Parliament, that this isn't want Harper was getting at, is risible. It's clearly an invitation to turn the keys over to a set of opposition parties with a working agreement on governing -- a tacit coalition if not a formal one. Otherwise, why mention other parties, for which he does not presumably speak, at all? And one of those is, of course, the dreaded Bloc. Harper didn't seem to mind making this suggestion to the GG not only "without [our] vote", but actually in lieu of our vote, in 2004...
The long and the short of it is, Harper has abrogated any right, whatsoever, to oppose the idea of a coalition, formal or informal, to govern this country, and has had no such moral right for over six years now.
Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.
Sandwalk
The Sandwalk is the path behind the home of Charles Darwin where he used to walk every day, thinking about science. You can see the path in the woods in the upper left-hand corner of this image.
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Principles of Biochemistry 5th edition
Some readers of this blog may be under the impression that my personal opinions represent the official position of Canada, the Province of Ontario, the City of Toronto, the University of Toronto, the Faculty of Medicine, or the Department of Biochemistry. All of these institutions, plus every single one of my colleagues, students, friends, and relatives, want you to know that I do not speak for them. You should also know that they don't speak for me.
The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.
Charles Darwin (c1880) Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.
Charles Darwin (1859) Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...
The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.
Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.
Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations
Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.
Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.
Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist
Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.
Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.
What's the best way to describe a graduate student?
What should scientific organizations like AAAS and NAS say about religion?
You are waiting in line at the post office. It will take 30 minutes to reach the counter. For $3 someone will move you to the front of the line. Would you ...
Which brower do you use?
How would you describe your political point of view?
Whose view of evolution is closest to your own?
How would you describe yourself?
How much of our genome could be deleted without having any significant effect on our species?
Look at the diagram on Monday's Molecule #62, posted on Monday February 11, 2008. Do you know what's going on?
Posts
Politics: anything to get in power - anything to stay in power.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the government has fallen, but I'm angry that none of the parties bothered coming up with a platform that differentiates them in any meaningful way.
"We're not the conservatives" isn't exactly a "policy" that'll draw my vote.
That is one ugly necktie being worn by the news reader.
ReplyDeleteYes, because This Hour Has 22 Mintues is the king of good reporting. Lowering your standards a bit when it makes your point?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't we look at what all three leaders said at a news conference in 2004:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkdXycwDUxA&feature=player_embedded
@Babylon5v,
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you want to split hairs. Let's play that game. Here's what Stephen Harper said a few days ago,
"Canadians need to understand clearly, without any ambiguity: unless Canadians elect a stable, national majority, Mr. Ignatieff will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois," Harper said. "They tried it before. It is clear they will try it again. And, next time, if given the chance, they will do it in a way that no one will be able to stop."
Did Michael Ignatieff ever propose forming a COALITION with the Bloc?
In 2008, Stephen Harper addressed the nation on television and said,
At a time of global economic instability, Canada’s Government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together. At a time like this, a coalition with the separatists cannot help Canada. And the Opposition does not have the democratic right to impose a coalition with the separatists they promised voters would never happen.
The Opposition is attempting to impose this deal without your say, without your consent, and without your vote. This is no time for backroom deals with the separatists; it is the time for Canada’s government to focus on the economy and specifically on measures for the upcoming budget. This is a pivotal moment in our history.
Do you think that Harper was being truthful when he talked about a COALITION with the Bloc?
Do you think he was being honest when he condemned "backroom deals" with the Bloc?
I'm curious to see how you respond.
@Larry Moran,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to respond to my comment.
"It's interesting that you want to split hairs. Let's play that game. Here's what Stephen Harper said a few days ago,"
I'm not really trying to split hairs. I just wanted to point out that the 2004 letter was in no way supporting a Coalition. You were implying it as such, using This Hour as your proof followed by the letter This Hour quoted. That's less splitting hairs and more pointing out that you were in error by your implication.
"Canadians need to understand clearly, without any ambiguity: unless Canadians elect a stable, national majority, Mr. Ignatieff will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois," Harper said. "They tried it before. It is clear they will try it again. And, next time, if given the chance, they will do it in a way that no one will be able to stop."
"Did Michael Ignatieff ever propose forming a COALITION with the Bloc?"
No, not during this election, nor after the last. What he did do though was sign a formal agreement that created a formal coalition between the Liberals and the NDP with official formal support from the Bloc in 2008. That document is still technically in effect until June.
"Do you think that Harper was being truthful when he talked about a COALITION with the Bloc?"
You're implication is right, Michael Ignatieff has never proposed including the Bloc in an actual Coalition government where he gives ministry positions to a Bloc member. Harper is being a little ambiguous in his claims to support his own partisan agenda.
"Do you think he was being honest when he condemned "backroom deals" with the Bloc?"
Well, I think he was being honest. But is he being a little hypocritical when he himself has made back room dealings with the Bloc? Yes, I think so. Though, I think the context of the particular back room deal he is talking about in that quote adds some credibility to his statement.
Is Harper being a little disingenuous when he says the Liberals will form a Coalition government with the Bloc? Yes. But even if the Bloc is not in the Coalition government, if the Liberals and NDP combined do not have more seats than the Conservatives, and the Liberals and NDP enter into a similar agreement such as the 2008 one, odds are the Bloc will have a little too much power than most Canadians feel comfortable with and Harper is keying into that.
Thank you Babylon5v for the link to the video that shows that Harper was not talking about a coalition in 2004.
ReplyDeleteI am getting tired of Moran trying to fool us with his comments.
And then trying to wiggle off with a comment about "splitting hairs".
I am not sure which is more distasteful. His original falsehood or his trying afterwards to distract from his falsehood.
Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteI am getting tired of Moran trying to fool us with his comments.
I'm getting tired or Anonymous having no name, particularly if it is the same Anonymous in comments to several posts. Bit cowardly, isn't it?
Anonymous said:
ReplyDeleteI am getting tired of Moran trying to fool us with his comments.
I am getting tired of Anonymous being anonymous.
I just wanted to point out that the 2004 letter was in no way supporting a Coalition.
ReplyDeleteThis is highly disingenuous of you if you know anything about the basics of our government.
Harper was advising the GG, on the fall of the government, to consider another option to dissolution and election. There is only one other option in that case: to turn the government over to the opposition. While strictly possible, that's not a viable option in the absence of a workable coalition structure (what would be the point if Parliament just fell again at the next budget vote?). For you say, after Harper moots the "consultation" of the "opposition parties" to a GG considering the dissolution of Parliament, that this isn't want Harper was getting at, is risible. It's clearly an invitation to turn the keys over to a set of opposition parties with a working agreement on governing -- a tacit coalition if not a formal one. Otherwise, why mention other parties, for which he does not presumably speak, at all? And one of those is, of course, the dreaded Bloc. Harper didn't seem to mind making this suggestion to the GG not only "without [our] vote", but actually in lieu of our vote, in 2004...
The long and the short of it is, Harper has abrogated any right, whatsoever, to oppose the idea of a coalition, formal or informal, to govern this country, and has had no such moral right for over six years now.