Canacrisis

Cato sobre la crisis política en Canadá.

Qué cosa, lo digo yo por acá y nadie me lleva el apunte. Lo dicen estos pibes y está todo el mundo tomando apuntes:

In these heady days of hope, change, puppies, and rainbows, not too many people are paying attention to the political tableau playing out in our northern neighbor. Those wags who do remember that Canada had its own election in October — resulting in the reelection of Prime Minister Stephen Harper – quip that, come January, the United States will have the most liberal government in North America.

Not so fast. It turns out that while Harper’s Conservatives did strengthen their minority government — that is, they won by far the largest plurality in the nation’s multi-party parliament, increasing their previous result – by definition a minority government can be outvoted if other parties gang up on them. Here’s the math: Canada’s House of Commons has 308 seats (meaning 155 constitutes a majority), of which the Conservatives have 143, the Liberals 77, the Bloc Quebecois (whose sole raison d’etre is that Quebec should be a separate country, but who can ideologically be described as populist-socialist) 49, New Democratic Party (socialists) 37, and unaffiliated independents 2. And here’s the short version of what’s gone down to upset the applecart: In a new fiscal program unveiled last week, PM Harper announced, among other things, cuts to public funding of political parties and restrictions on public sector unions’ right to strike. The opposition would have none of this and quickly arranged what in other circumstances might be a called a palace coup: Liberal leader Stephane Dion (already a lame duck after leading his party to its worst showing ever), citing the Conservatives’ failure to prepare for a recession (nevermind that Canada’s economy grew in the third quarter, and by more than it has all year), agreed on a tripartite deal with the NDP and Bloc that would oust the Tory government.

The biggest news here is that, for the first time ever, a separatist party will be a formal part of the government — the king-makers, no less. The federalism/Quebec “question” is, shall we say, a delicate one in Canada, so this is a pretty big deal.