House of Commons Math+

In the house of commons, there are 308 MPs, of those MPs, 49 are held by MPs that would like to see an end to Canada as we know it. I was inspired to write this because of a column by Bill Tieleman. Bill and I rarely agree on anything political, but this time I agree with gist of what he has to say and it lead me to think about the members of the hosue of commons and how badly the Bloc skews this.

The Bloc Quebecois is not interested in the good governance of Canada, they are first off interested in an independent Quebec and secondly in whatever can be done to increase the power of the province of Quebec. If one looks at politics in Canada through the lens of the 90% of people that voted for parties that are federalist, the situation looks different.

Taking out the seperatist MPs leaves us with the following:

• Total MPs - 259
• Conservatives - 143
• Liberals - 77
• NDP - 37
• Ind - 2

A clear majority of the MPs interested in the concept of a federal Canada are Conservatives. This has to be considered by all the MPs in Ottawa as a significant mandate from non-seperatist Canadians.

The problem is that there 49 MPs in Ottawa with no interest in the bigger picture of a federal country. These 49 MPs mean that neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals/NDP can govern without them. Both posssible governments are to some extent depedent on people not interested in stablity in Ottawa.

We are in an odd deadlock in Canada as long as the Bloc can hold the balance of power. With the Liberals and NDP talking coalition, they dramatically increase the power of the Bloc because the house is then divided into two factions needing the Bloc.

There are only a few possible outcomes of this stand off:

1. The Liberals and NDP back down with the knowledge they have slapped the government enough to wake them up.
2. The prime minister makes some deals with the Bloc to gain their support or at least get them to abstain.
3. The government offers to spend more money
   
4. We head to another election very soon.

I can not see the Liberals and NDP actually managing to build a coalition that could realistically ask the GG to let them govern.

I think the NDP is making a huge mistake in helping the Liberals. I know it would hurt the NDP if they lost the support per voter money, but they are the second best party in Canada when it comes to raising money. The current system helps keep the Liberals ahead of the NDP and to be able to out spend them. Without the money, the number two party nationaly would be the NDP and the national election debate would be between the NDP and Conservatives.

The NDP would also benefit from a Green Party having less money to spend and a Bloc with effectively no resources at all.

With the talk of a coalition, the NDP is saying people should back the Liberals, they are putting wind into the sails of a party in serious trouble.