Socialist and separatist factions have joined forces to topple Canada's democratically elected government in an apparent coup d'état.

If you had told me two weeks ago that this would be the headline, I never would have believed you. Still think Canadian politics is boring and uninteresting? To all of you who watched the vice presidential debate instead of the Canadian debate and the over 40% of you who didn't even make it to the ballot box: I blame you for this. Will it take an NDP finance minister to destroy the economy and the Bloc holding the balance of power in the House for Canadians to realize that who they send to Ottawa has a tangible effect on their lives?

This is exactly why we needed a majority government to come out of the last election. When we are facing the worst economic crises in our lifetime, we cannot afford to have unstable governments in Ottawa. Yet people continued to believe the fantasies of the left. That somehow, spending a bunch of money the government doesn't have... make that a bunch of YOUR money the government doesn't have, will make everyone better off.

It is this type of thinking that's driving the coalition talks. Fist they said they were going to topple the government because they wanted to continue to receive public money to finance their political debts. Now they're saying they will topple the government because it won't recklessly throw away money on a multi-billion dollar economic stimulus package.

The Conservatives plan is designed to keep the country from falling into a deficit situation while waiting for the Americans to introduce an economic stimulus package so we can target our spending toward sectors of the economy that would give us the most value for money. Why is this a good thing? First of all, the less debt we accumulate during this recession, the less money our children have to pay back later. Plus, if our debt starts increasing and we see negative GDP growth, it will only make matters worse. Second, if Canada releases its stimulus package before seeing the Americans hand, we could find out that we wasted a bunch of money, which may cause us to spend more money than we need to. For example, if the Americans end up targeting sectors of the economy that were not targeted by the Canadian plan, investment in those industries will start flowing south of the boarder. This will weaken the Canadian economy and cause the government to spend more taxpayer dollars all because the opposition couldn't wait to see how things played out in the US.

Many people have been blaming the Conservatives for forcing the opposition's hand on this issue. It was, without a doubt, a bad idea to attack the opposition parties financially in a minority parliament. However, could anyone have reasonably foreseen these consequences? The Conservatives took too hard a line in their economic update and they should have known that the opposition would not sit back while the government tried to destroy them financially. However, the government backed down from this the next day. This is how minority governments are supposed to work. This is pluralism in action. Yet, instead of compromising with the government, the opposition has chosen to try and bring down the government, less than two months after an election no less. Is this the civility in Ottawa we were promised? How about trying to make parliament work? How about respecting the democratic system and the choice Canadians made? Sure, more Canadians voted for opposition parties than for the government. However, do you really think that Liberal voters expected their votes would give power to the separatists? This coalition is completely illegitimate.

All we have right now is a statement by the government, nothing more. A statement by the government should not be enough to lose the confidence of the House. The opposition should, at the very least, wait until a budget is tabled before they start talking about a coup.

What we are seeing in Ottawa is nothing short of debased political opportunism. Don't believe the opposition when they say the government hasn't tried to compromise on any of these issues. Don't believe them when they say the government doesn't have a plan. Not wasting your money is a plan and it's a pretty good plan at that. Can you tell I'm angry? We should be angry to find out the NDP has been in secret talks with the Bloc even before the economic update was released. We should be angry to realize that when Dion said he'd become prime minister, he'd be willing to achieve that goal by any means necessary. We should be angry to think that pretty soon the socialists could be in charge of the Canadian economy, in the midst of an economic crisis. This is a direct attack on Canadian democracy. You should be angry too.

Further Reading: Coup in Ottawa

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