Our Minority Government has been pushed out of office due to a Non Confidence vote. The Prime Minister Paul Martin has asked the Governor General to dissolve Parilament and he has scheduled an election for January 23, 2006. With the current make up and number of parties which are seeking to win seats in Parliament I beleive that we will see another minority government in the Canadian Parliament. If that is the case it will be interesting to see how long that government lasts before we see another non-confidence vote.
Over the past 15-20 years or so Canada has seen the evolution of our political system with the addition of several parties which started out as regional parties and have become national parties. The major players are the Liberal party which is a party close to the centre and has been in power for 12 years. The Reform party was based in the West and evolved from a fringe party with an agenda to bring more recognition to Western Canada to a national party when they merged with the Progressive Conservative party. This merger allowed for a national party which could challenge the Liberals. Another of the parties to join the national scene is the Bloc Quebecois which is centered in the province of Quebec and their platform is to promote sovereignty for Quebec. They are a regional party and have little support outside Quebec.
There are sevral other parties which maybe on the ballot with the Green Party and possibly the Marijuana Party having the possiblity of winning a seat or two.
It should be an interesting time leading up to the election.
Let the mud slinging begin
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