Last Thursday there was a vote at second reading in the Ontario Legislature on Cheri DiNovo’s reintroduced private member’s bill to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour. The Bill was defeated 33-11. Almost 60% of the House was absent. There were so few Liberals present that had enough opposition members been there, and had it been a matter of confidence, the government could have been defeated. The government whip’s job is to ensure that such an occurrence never happens. For a majority government to have what I call a guaranteed majority, a certain minimum of government members must be present. This minimum is one more than the total number of opposition members in existence combined. Any less than this and the government can be outvoted. I have looked at numerous House votes both federal and provincial and I have seen that on some occasions the total number of voting government members is less than the guaranteed majority number. My assumption is that in these instances, the whip also counts how many opposition members are present. If the opposition number is insufficient, I can assume the vote proceeds and the government maintains a relative majority for that particular vote. The government whip’s job is to count both government and opposition members present to ensure that the government never loses a crucial vote of any kind.
I have gotten off topic. I wanted to say that my position on the minimum wage has not changed. I do not support Cheri DiNovo’s Bill and instead support the government’s plan to continue to incrementally increase the minimum wage. One Liberal MPP, Tony Ruprecht, voted in favour of the Bill. This is consistent with his statement during the election that he supports an immediate 10 dollar minimum wage. Considering the poverty levels that exist in his riding of Davenport, I do not blame him at all for his position. I feel like listing here the recorded division on DiNovo’s Bill:
In Favour:
Bisson
DiNovo
Gélinas
Hampton
Horwath
Kormos
Marchese
Miller (Hamilton East–Stoney Creek)
Prue
Ruprecht
Tabuns
Against:
Aggelonitis
Arthurs
Balkissoon
Broten
Brownell
Chudleigh
Colle
Delaney
Dhillon
Dickson
Flynn
Gerretsen
Hardeman
Hoy
Jones
Klees
Kwinter
Lalonde
Leal
Levac
Mitchell
Moridi
Naqvi
Ramsay
Rinaldi
Savoline
Scott
Sergio
Shurman
Smith
Van Bommel
Wilkinson
Wilson
Showing posts with label opposition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opposition. Show all posts
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Jocelyn Coulon
Outremont Liberal candidate Jocelyn Coulon has a website now. The Outremont by-election has been called but I can get very little coverage of it. However, I found an editorial in The Suburban “QUEBEC’S LARGEST ENGLISH WEEKLY NEWSPAPER”( http://thesuburban.com/content.jsp?sid=10264485391792019844135862989&ctid=1000002&cnid=1012344) that I found offensive. It was about the history of Liberal foreign policy and Jocelyn Coulon’s own foreign policies. These words from the article alone are offensive to Lester Pearson’s peacekeeping legacy that won him a Nobel prize:
“Lester Pearson’s vaunted role in developing “peacekeepers” following the Suez crisis was more a construct to protect the dignity of the British and offer them an elegant way out.”
The editorial was written from a very neo-conservative prospective on foreign policy. Its perspective appears similar in line to that of Conservative foreign policy, but is far more blatant than the federal government is in making said neo-conservative position stand out. I’m not going to go over the whole article because there are parts that I find too offensive to even repeat. But I will say that the article concludes with this:
“In this most dangerous of worlds, we hope voters in Outremont send a message to “les rouges” that the time for dilettantes and straw men is over. Outremont, on September 17 say “ca suffit” to the Liberals and M. Coulon. It’s time to end the charade.”
I can assume that they hope that Outremont voters vote something other than Liberal. However the NDP and Bloc have similar foreign policy positions to the Liberals on the issues that the article discusses. So what I think they’re really asking is that Outremont voters vote Conservative. However, a large majority of Outremont and Quebec voters do not share this editorial’s neo-conservative view on foreign policy and thus this is not a useful way of convincing Outremont voters to vote Conservative.
Amusingly, one of the article’s complaints was this:
“In continental issues, the Liberals opposed free trade and branded Brian Mulroney an American lackey.” As far as free trade is concerned, it was a contentious issue back then. The Liberals needed to take advantage of the issue as best they could and oppose Mulroney’s Free Trade Agreement due to its many potential flaws. As far as the editorial’s complaints about branding Mulroney an American lackey, what is there to complain about? It was obvious to everyone, including the media and political cartoonists, that Mulroney often did seem like an American lackey. The Liberals were Mulroney’s political opponents. They had every right to exploit that image in the same way that the Liberals now have the right to pound the Conservatives on the Afghan detainee issue. As much as the Tories hate it when the Liberals find something like the detainee issue and pound them with it, this is the Liberals’ job. As much as the Tories still pretend the Liberals have no right to criticize the Harper government, they are wrong. It is the Liberals’ right and obligation to attack the Harper government with anything they see fit that will embarrass the government. So the editorial should not be complaining about how the Liberals portrayed Mulroney. That characteristic of Mulroney was obvious and it was the Liberals’ job to remind voters of one of Mulroney’s signature traits.
By the way, the Outremont race is probably between the Liberals and the NDP. But I still find it hard to believe that such a significant threat is coming from the NDP in a Quebec riding.
“Lester Pearson’s vaunted role in developing “peacekeepers” following the Suez crisis was more a construct to protect the dignity of the British and offer them an elegant way out.”
The editorial was written from a very neo-conservative prospective on foreign policy. Its perspective appears similar in line to that of Conservative foreign policy, but is far more blatant than the federal government is in making said neo-conservative position stand out. I’m not going to go over the whole article because there are parts that I find too offensive to even repeat. But I will say that the article concludes with this:
“In this most dangerous of worlds, we hope voters in Outremont send a message to “les rouges” that the time for dilettantes and straw men is over. Outremont, on September 17 say “ca suffit” to the Liberals and M. Coulon. It’s time to end the charade.”
I can assume that they hope that Outremont voters vote something other than Liberal. However the NDP and Bloc have similar foreign policy positions to the Liberals on the issues that the article discusses. So what I think they’re really asking is that Outremont voters vote Conservative. However, a large majority of Outremont and Quebec voters do not share this editorial’s neo-conservative view on foreign policy and thus this is not a useful way of convincing Outremont voters to vote Conservative.
Amusingly, one of the article’s complaints was this:
“In continental issues, the Liberals opposed free trade and branded Brian Mulroney an American lackey.” As far as free trade is concerned, it was a contentious issue back then. The Liberals needed to take advantage of the issue as best they could and oppose Mulroney’s Free Trade Agreement due to its many potential flaws. As far as the editorial’s complaints about branding Mulroney an American lackey, what is there to complain about? It was obvious to everyone, including the media and political cartoonists, that Mulroney often did seem like an American lackey. The Liberals were Mulroney’s political opponents. They had every right to exploit that image in the same way that the Liberals now have the right to pound the Conservatives on the Afghan detainee issue. As much as the Tories hate it when the Liberals find something like the detainee issue and pound them with it, this is the Liberals’ job. As much as the Tories still pretend the Liberals have no right to criticize the Harper government, they are wrong. It is the Liberals’ right and obligation to attack the Harper government with anything they see fit that will embarrass the government. So the editorial should not be complaining about how the Liberals portrayed Mulroney. That characteristic of Mulroney was obvious and it was the Liberals’ job to remind voters of one of Mulroney’s signature traits.
By the way, the Outremont race is probably between the Liberals and the NDP. But I still find it hard to believe that such a significant threat is coming from the NDP in a Quebec riding.
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