The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #116631   Message #2515780
Posted By: bobad
15-Dec-08 - 10:29 AM
Thread Name: BS: Wild Canadian Politics
Subject: RE: BS: Wild Canadian Politics
Not only is Harper a hypocrite and a liar but so is Stockwell Day.

"The brutal fact here is that something has happened that has never happened before in Canadian history," Mr. Day, the current Conservative Minister of Trade, said on CTV Newsnet on Tuesday. "And that is two federal leaders have actually signed a deal with a separatist party whose goal it is to destroy the country."

The separatist Bloc Québécois was part of secret plotting in 2000 to join a formal coalition with the two parties that now make up Stephen Harper's government, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The scheme, designed to propel current Conservative minister Stockwell Day to power, undermines the Harper government's line this week that it would never sign a deal like the current one between the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Bloc.

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"We will have [in a coalition] a mechanism of permanent consultation empowering the Bloc Québécois on every question of importance, notably concerning the adoption of the budget. This Prime Minister, this government, this party has never and will never sign a document like that," Mr. Harper said.

While in opposition, however, Mr. Harper asked then-Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson in 2004 to turn to him if Paul Martin's newly elected Liberal government were defeated in the Commons.

"We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority," Mr. Harper said at the time.

Now at the time, the Liberals had 135 seats, the Conservative Party had 99 seats, the Bloc Quebecois had 54 seats and the NDP had 19 seats.

So when Harper said that "the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority," that included the Bloc Quebecois. He could not have formed a minority coalition government without the 54 Bloc Quebecois seats.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081203.wquebec1203/BNStory/National/home