MPs

Okay, so a few months ago when Canadians learned of the possibility of a Liberal-NDP coalition removing Conservative Harper from his PM position, I watched and was involved in some interesting arguments that mainly dealt with semantics. Technically in Canada, we vote for our local MP (member of parliament) and the party with the most MPs taking seats in the House of Commons gets to have their leader as the Prime Minister. Clear as mud? We do not vote individually for provincial or federal leaders for this - we vote for the local MP. Okay, so when the coalition parade started, I saw people saying things like "I did not vote for Dion (liberal), I voted for Harper and he won"... Endless times I would see Libs or NDPs correcting those people and saying "you did not vote for Harper, or the conservatives, you voted for your local MP' blah blah blah. The MP that is supposed to support his/her constituents' beliefs/concerns/ideas.

Okay got that? Well I intervened a few times and said 'yes, we voted for our local MP but we also vote with an idea and hope that the party our MP represents will get to lead all of Canada and the Province as well. When we vote for our conservative MP we are also hoping Harper will get to be PM". I had liberals arguing with me left right and center about this, going on and on about how it shouldn't matter what party the MP is a member of, you should be voting for who will represent you best in Ottawa, yadda yadda yadda.

Okay so let's move ahead to what I saw on tv on Tuesday - the Liberal leader (Ignatieff now), saying he will 'allow' 6 of the Lib MP's to vote against the party"Just this once" in regard to the budget. So if we the people are voting for MPs to represent each individual city/town/region, WHY is a party leader only allowing MPs to vote WITH the party no matter what their people's beliefs are? Ignatieff is 'allowing' them to vote against his recommendations 'once'. I wanted to go back to that old forum and throw that right in their faces. All their fancy political garble about how you vote for your local MP, not a federal or provincial leader was just chucked right at them by the leader of the very party they support so loudly. This showed me that it doesn't matter what us regular citizens think, it doesn't matter how many times we call our MP with concerns or suggestions, they will go with the Party in voting - unless their party leader 'allows' them 'just this once' to vote in another direction. Sorry there Libs but apparently us conservatives were aware of this all along eh? Not to say it is right, but don't come along and tell me what the textbook says about how this works, it has not worked like that for a long time. In the US, 11 Democrats voted against the Stimulus Bill, most likely because they decided to represent their own people instead of 'voting with the party'. The Republicans banded together and voted it out, but again because their people did not want it (the majority didn't)... So what about the rest of the Democrats - did they vote For the stimulus because their constituents were calling them hundreds of times a day in SUPPORT of it? I highly doubt that. Those people voted For the stimulus to be in sync with what their party leaders wanted, not with what the people wanted. The same thing happens up here, only the party leader has to grant PERMISSION for his MPs to vote differently. That is even worse!

Anyway I am just rambling because if it's worse up here and the US is starting to lean more in our direction, then Look Out. Already people in the US complain that their representatives are NOT representing them --- take a peek over the border and see what it's like here where you have to vote with the party, or face consequences (Ignatieff originally told these 6 that they would face serious repercussions if they did not vote WITH the party). This could be you eventually... but anyway, I just had to get that off my chest. 6 months ago I told the liberal forum-followers that you have to take into consideration the party as well when you vote and they lied through their teeth, pretending they only vote for the person, not the party (GAG ME).... and their new party leader is threatening his MPs not to vote in line with their constituents' thinking... oooooooooo lovely!