TODAY'S ELECTION DAY IN CANADA!

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Are you going to vote?

I know that I am. I may not be the Reddest Mapleleaf, but I still make a point in voting in the Federal Election. I was once denied the right to Vote, because some Family Members thought that I was too screwed up to understand Politics. Even after I've been keeping tabs on the Campainges in the Paper and on The News. That was back in the October of 1993 and I was very angry, when I've found out the reason behind my missing Voter's Card. I might not be the Poster Child for what the Perfect Canadian looks and acts like, but I've Voted in every Federal Election, since the May of 1997. I Vote, because I know what it's like to be denied the right to Vote, at the expense of others.

Maybe this should be moved into Politics and Religion.

Yep, of course I'll be voting.

Unfortunately I ran out of time when I was in Canada for Xmas. I guess I won't be voting in this year's election. Maybe I'll have a chance in 2007.

So who has won in the election in Canada I have not watched the news lately.

The Conservatives won.

So who are the Conservatives that won.

Looks like the Conservatives are going to arm the border guards so they won't have to flee their posts anymore when a fugitive is heading their way.

I'm not sure I understand the question. The Conservatives are one of the political parties here. Their leader is Stephen Harper, so he's now our Prime Minister (like your President).

The way an election works here is that candidates run in their own areas where they live and we vote for the person/party we want. The winner in each area gets a 'seat' in parliment and they become our representative for our area. Whichever party gets the most seats is the winner and their leader becomes Prime Minister of the country. So not only are you voting for your local representative, that same vote also determines which political party will be in power/who the Prime Minister will be. The other parties still have a say in decisions though because everything (new laws etc) gets voted on by everyone in there. The more seats you have, the more say you'd have. If the winning party gets more than half the total number of seats, it's called a majority government and that party will pretty much run the country no matter what the other parties think, because they'll have the most votes on everything. In a minority government, which we have now, the winning party has more seats than any other party BUT they have less than half of the total available seats, so they'd need cooperation (votes) from other parties in order to make their ideas law. Make sense?

There are 308 seats in parliment. 155 would be needed for a majority government. Here's how many each party won in this past election:
Conservative: 124 (leader is Stephen Harper, our new Prime Minister)
Liberal: 103 (leader was Paul Martin, our former Prime Minister because the Liberals were in power, but he's stepped down so they'll have to find a new leader for the party)
Bloc Quebecois: 51 (leader is Gilles Duceppe)
New Democratic Party: 29 (leader is Jack Layton)
Independant (no party affiliation): 1

The area I live in elected the Conservative candidate so that accounts for one of the conservative seats.

neongrl

That was what I was asking who was the New Prime Minister and such things like that. Thanks for the information.

How do You like Your new Prime Minister?

Think he will do a good job as Prime Minister or not?

How conservative are the Conservatives in Canada?

I like the new prime minister and I think he'll do a good job - certainly better than the guy who was in power before. As for the conservatives - they're a little less conservative than the american ones.

Seeing as the Conservatives are going to have a hellish time trying to form a governing coalition with any of the other parties (all of the rest of them are generally left-of-center), what is the likelyhood of the Liberals stepping in and forming a governing coalition with the NDP and the Bloc and under a Conservative PM? Also, what are the chances that this whole mess will all come crashing down, with yet another federal election, before the end of 2006? (hmmmm, a USA Federal by-election and a Canadian Federal election on the same day??? )

Note, even though I am a true red-white-and-blue USAian, while I was growing up I had a neighbour whom had immigrated from Quebec in the late 1950s, never looked back and turned me on to all of the rather fascinating issues 'up north'. After logically thinking things through, I deemed it prudent to keep an eye on things, if for no other reason than the very real potential for these things to ultimately directly affect us here in the USofA.

Mike