Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Change Is Good

Change is good – well at least sometimes. We have a new government in Canada and a new Prime Minister-elect. Thirteen years of government under the Liberal party has ended and they can now take a breath and rebuild. When a party is in power for too long, they get stale, and they get too greedy. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Conservatives can govern in a minority parliament and how the other parties will reach compromises with the Conservatives to give us another two years before we go to the polls again.

In reading Karen’s blog posting on this, I noticed that she had a few comments asking about minority governments, election calls, and trying to find similarities with the US political system. The US media actually wrote quite a bit about it for a Canadian election but they too just used the words and didn’t quite explain it. The comment spaces are too small to go into it in any detail, but I’ll try to explain some of it here.

Let’s start at the top:

Canada’s official head of state is the Governor-General. This position is largely ceremonial; however the GG must sign all bills into law that have passed through Parliament and the Senate. The GG is also the only person able to dissolve parliament and formally call an election (also known as dropping the writ). The GG usually does this at the request of the Prime Minister but has the power to dissolve Parliament and call elections if he or she feels it is in the best interest of the country. The GG is appointed by the Prime Minister and stays for a term of 5 years.

The Senate is an appointed house (however many people want it reformed to be an elected house) and once you are appointed, it is a lifetime term. Once again, the sitting Prime Minister appoints senators when seats become available. The Senate is known as the house of “sober second thought” and must debate and vote on all bills passed by parliament. Only bills that pass the Senate are sent to the GG for assent.

The House of Parliament is where the real action takes place. There are 308 members of Parliament, each representing their constituency or riding (similar to congressional districts). Riding boundaries are decided usually by geography (in the case of the far north) or population (in other areas). The number of ridings and their boundaries are adjusted every few years to keep up with population changes.

The party that wins the most seats is asked to form the government. The leader of that party is then sworn in as Prime Minister. So, in Canada, the Prime Minister is only directly elected by the people in his/her riding, not the entire country. The part with the second-highest number of seats is called the loyal opposition and is required to question the government and hold them to account.

If the winning party has more than half the seats in parliament, they form a majority government. A majority government can implement its policies fairly easily since they can make sure they win every vote.

However, we have a multi-party system. So, sometimes the winning party has the most seats, but not more than half. That is a minority government. A government with a minority must negotiate with the other parties to gain enough support to pass their legislation. This is the type of government Canadians elected in 2004 and now again in 2006 (albeit with different parties winning).

Elections must be called every 5 years. However it is the discretion of the Prime Minister to call and election when he/she sees fit. The only other time is if the governing party loses a “vote of confidence” which could be the defeat of a major government bill like the budget, or the opposition parties force a vote specifically calling for the government to resign and they win that vote (the only time this has ever occurred was in November, 2005). There has been talk of electoral reform where there would be fixed election dates every four years (with the exception of elections forced due to non-confidence votes) so that the Prime Minister would no longer be able to time the election for when they wanted it.

Minority governments in Canada have only averaged a 15-18 month life span. All sides have to keep up appearances of trying to make it work, but the governing party may force the opposition parties to defeat it (if they feel they can get a majority) or the opposition parties will bring down a government if they feel the time is ripe for them.  I personally thing we are going to get two years out of this government because the Liberals have to choose a new leader (Paul Martin, the outgoing PM announced he was resigning as leader of the Liberal Party) and they will need the time to get that new leader and get him/her introduced to the public.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Changing Cars

Every time we say goodbye
I die a little
Every time we say goodbye
I wonder why a little

Every Time We Say Goodbye – Cole Porter

OK, ok so maybe a Cole Porter song is a little too sappy when referring to a car. But you see, I sold my car this week – my 1997 Subaru Legacy sedan which I have had since 2000 and driven over 200,000km (125,000 miles). The most reliable car I’ve ever owned. A car that I truly enjoyed driving for the 5 years I had it. True, it was – no, is – 9 years old. It also has 290,000km (181,250 mi) on the odometer. It’s also in really good condition. It required almost nothing to get its safety certificate. The emissions tests barely registered any of the harmful substances they test for. The body is in great shape and the engine still runs really smooth (you gotta love the Subaru flat boxer engine) and the AWD (all wheel drive) meant I never got stuck in any weather. My new boss was even trying to get me to replace the engine and transmission with that from a Subaru Impreza WRX STi. Did I mention he races Subarus?

So why did I sell it? Well, like all things as they get older, they have to slow down. I know I had great success with this car, but they don’t last forever and I drive way too much to have to rely on a 9 year old car. It was time to say goodbye while I still could get something for it. Besides, Karen can’t drive standard and we wanted an automatic so we could each drive either car.

Now it’s gone. The person I who bought it took possession last night and was already thrilled with it as he drove away. It only took 3 days to sell and the buyer fell in love with it when he drove it. He races as well, and – while he did not buy it for racing – it may indeed someday get its turbocharged makeover.

So, I bought a new car.

The machine of a dream, such a clean machine,
With the pistons a pumpin', and the hubcaps all gleam.
When I'm holding your wheel,
All I hear is your gear,

I'm in love with my car, gotta feel for my automobile,
Get a grip on my boy racer rollbar,
Such a thrill when your radials squeal.

When I'm holding your wheel,
All I hear is your gear,
When I'm cruisin' in overdrive,
Don't have to listen to no run of the mill talk jive,

I’m In Love With My Car – Queen

I bought a brand new 2006 Subaru Impreza. This car is a joy to drive (even if it is an automatic). With its 2.5L 175HP 4 cylinder boxer engine and AWD this car has a lot of responsiveness (although not like the 300HP STi or the 400HP my boss gets from his custom-tuned 2.5L engine). It’s enough for me. It’s also the car that I’m going to drive for the next 5 to 7 years.

I looked at a number of other cars before I settled on the Impreza. Front wheel-drive cars just don’t cut it for me anymore – I’m not used to my wheels slipping and feeling the front-end “float” in snowy or wet weather. I also looked at other AWD vehicles, but I noticed how much louder they were and they didn’t handle the same way. I have to say I’m pretty much a Subaru driver now. WOOT!

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars

Here in my car
I can only receive
I can listen to you
It keeps me stable for days
In cars

Cars – Gary Numan