There is only one day left in the 2009 Nova Scotia General Election and therefore it might not be a bad idea to quickly highlight some of the popular Nova Scotia election resources:
B.C. Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell has won an historic third straight term as the province's premier. Preliminary results in Tuesday's B.C. election show Campbell's Liberals leading with 45.7 per cent of the popular vote, ahead of Carole James's NDP at 42.2 per cent.
I'm not a big fan of B.C. premier Gordon Campbell, but am consistently surprised at what an excellent campaigner he is. For example, how cool is this?:
"The premier started his day at an event with the stunning backdrop of the $143-million Park Bridge, part of a $972-million project to widen one of B.C.'s most dangerous stretches of highway.
In response to a series of reforms proposed by Prime Minister Harper, the Government of Manitoba is investigating new ways of selecting provincial representatives in the Senate of Canada. As part of this process, the Manitoba Government just completed a series of public consultations, during which I recommended the province adopt a "Weighted-District-Election" model for selecting Senators-in-waiting...
Helen Forsey, the daughter of the late eminent constitutional scholar, Eugene Forsey, weighs in on what her father would have had to say about the constitutional "crisis" in December. It's a worthwhile refresher course on the principles of parliamentary government, especially in a minority government situation. You can read it here.
Yesterday, Elections Canada issued the fourth quarter financial returns for political parties in 2008. In November, party finance became headline news when the Conservatives tried to remove the annual subsidy for political parties in the economic update. Party finance is usually not a sexy topic and has since faded from the headlines. But the release of the new numbers is exciting for those of us who study and are obsessed by the finances of Canada's political parties (I think there are three of us).
Although the budget may not look very conservative, its long run impact is very consistent with the goal of a smaller, leaner federal government. In that way, the budget is very consistent with Harper's incremental conservatism.
And it all comes down to this: budget day! Things in Canadian politics have been pretty slow over the last month or so. But today we see the budget that will determine not only the way the government responds to the recession we're experiencing, but also the future of the Liberal-NDP coalition. The NDP and the BQ have pretty much indicated that they oppose the budget and want the coalition to proceed. Since Michael Ignatieff has become the leader, he's been decidedly cooler about the coalition idea than his predecessor, Stephane Dion. It seems clear to me that the Liberals are going to support the budget. There's enough there that they can take credt for and support and not enough to justify bringing down the government.
The federal government is going to unprecedented lengths to offer Canadians a preview of Tuesday' budget. Proponents claim the move will allow Canadians to digest all of the specific measures in manageable bites, while opponents say the government is trying to get all of the "bad news" out of the way early. Either way, a series of weekend press conferences and television appearances have let several cats out of the bag, and we expect even more announcements today. Here's a running list of what (not) to look for in the upcoming Throne Speech and Budget:
The current economic downturn offers a unique environment in which to test the strengths and weaknesses of Canada's various "Balanced Budget Legislation" (BBL) regimes.
Andrew Steele has written a strange article describing potential successors for Stephen Harper as Conservative leader should the government be defeated in January. I doubt that Harper is in any real danger even if he does lose a confidence vote - there are no formal mechanisms to remove him as leader in the short term and no other candidate has anything resembling Harper's rock-solid base of support within the party.
Hindsight is 20/20, and a backseat driver is always the best judge of the road. For what it's worth, here's my view of the past few weeks, as seen out the rear windshield. Part I: What lessons can we learn from the Conservatives?
