Sunday, May 15, 2011

The College in Parliament: have Quebec voters put in place the Opposition of the Canada to failure?

Opposition of the Canada policy took a hard left turn, with bizarre consequences. The fourth general election in just seven years has seen Canadians respond to conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper for political stability appeal referring him to the power with the Government of the majority that has eluded him already. Real surprise of the election, however, was the fact that labour's new Democratic Party (NDP) led by Salty Jack Layton ranked second for the first time - with the strong support of francophone Quebec voters normally support the separatist Bloc Québécois.


But the new crop of legislators, the NDP will bring to Parliament are hardly conventional political hacks. They include nine students and recent graduates, a former candidate of the Party of the community and a woman who spent part of his campaign on holiday in sunny Las Vegas. (See a profile of Prime Minister Stephen Harper).


Pierre-Luc Dusseault for the NDP, a student 19 years at the University of Sherbrooke, became the youngest Member ever elected to the Parliament of Canada. Need to give up his summer job at a golf course to take his duties with a salary of $leaving and staff. Before embarking on a federal political career, the biggest item on the curriculum vitae of Dessault may have been representing his high school swim team in the regional finals.


The Canada is something else in progress or has lost its marbles?


Everyone in the Canada think this is a bad idea electing beginners who may otherwise be landing jobs at Starbucks or the print service. Their victory was a sign that some candidates of this generation of social media is very effective Facebook and Twitter campaigns eclipsed traditional campaign work.


Mathieu Ravignat, the former candidate of the Party of the community and with the medieval sword Ottawa Guild Executive, toppled a champion of policy to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon by over 8,000 votes. Alexandrine Latendresse, a student of Linguistics University Laval aged 26 years whose Facebook page reveals a weakness for ice vodka and procrastination, also ousted a Cabinet session. (See Quebec in the top ten nations aspiring).


"Perhaps it is time for what happened," explains Derek Leebosh with Toronto-based Environics Research Group, a company specialized in opinion polls. "The Parliament should reflect the population of the Canada not a club for the old fuddy duddies."


He attributes the NDP unprescedented victory in Quebec, where he won 58 of 75 seats, a desire to suddenly of radical change. Voters had grown frustrated by the inability of the Bloc Québécois to secure any policy victories with his independence seeking shrill agenda for the French territory. By choosing an alternative, they skip on the Conservatives and the Liberals, the traditional parties of the Canada.


But he has been head of the NDP Layton, who, in the last days of his campaign, with questions to the bare subject of discovery by the Toronto police to a massage parlor Chinatown years earlier, which proved to be unstoppable. The affable cancer survivor marked the point after point against PM Harper and Harvard professor-turned-Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff in two national debates. He seduces the québécois with his popular style, wielding a big smile and a cane during an appearance recent hip surgery on a French popular talk-show.


The campaign in early April, support for the NDP in Quebec amounted to 21% of the block 34%, according to the firm Environics for interrogation. Three weeks later, these figures had overthrown, with the NDP to 41% of the 28% block - thanks in large part to the performance of Layton in the eyes of the public. (See the thinker of Harvard, changing of the Canadian political scene).


Many voters in Quebec, said that they voted NDP to federalism one last chance, after what they consider that the failure of other national parties. But what chance the new official opposition meet traditional recriminations of Quebec - which include the call for autonomy on language policy and immigration - while relying on a strong contingent of MPs with training wheels?


It is fair to say that many NDP candidates was not expected to win seats, and they face a steep learning curve that will include language courses for unilingual Anglophones representing French only constituencies.


"The NDP will need to turn his mind to how it can consolidate support in Quebec, without alienating supporters in the rest of the country" said Robert Drummond, Professor of political science and public policy at York University in Toronto.


That balancing act could well prove to cause the loss of the NDP to take on the role of the official opposition. Cast of inexperienced deputies more used to write reviews that they are to the period of the questions on the Hill, and it is easy to imagine Quebec voters again feeling excluded out in Ottawa. That could lead to another referendum on independence for Quebec in four years, in which separatists say that Ottawa has proved unable to do. But before this rendezvous with history, at least more recent members of the Canada will have a few years working on their French.

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