Friday, October 08, 2004

They pulled it from the fire!

It was a close call, but it looks like the Liberals will govern for at least another week as they face a confidence vote on October 18. This session of Parliament will be interesting as the Bloc and Conservatives try to diminish federal power by pushing their own regional agendas.

On the American front, American Roman Catholic Archbishop Raymond Burke sparked a national debate earlier this year by announcing he would deny Holy Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Now, he says there is no justification for voters to back a candidate supporting abortion rights. But does he have the same standards for those candidates who backed the war and support capital punishment? Why is abortion the only pro-life issue?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just curious how you define regional interests. The Bloc is easy, but do you call the Conservatives regional for electing members in only 8 provinces or because 46% of their seats are in the prairies? Does 56% of the Liberals seats being in Ontario or 73% being in Ontario and Quebec not also make them a regional party?

Unknown said...

I never called the Conservatives a "regional party" only that they had a regional agenda. Stephen Harper moaned about Ontario was rejecting "Alberta-style politics" on the federal stage. But while we're talking percentages, I don't know the precise figure but I recognize that more than half of Canadians life in Ontario and Quebec, so their voting habits can hardly be called regional.

But the point I was getting at was the Bloc and Conservatives have one thing in common: the want more power for the provinces. That's what I meant by regional.