Would Canadians in this forum please stop saying that you will, or will not vote for the Prime Minister.

You’re correct that Canadians don’t directly vote for a PM but people use “I’m voting for X” or “I’m voting for X for PM” as lazy shorthand when “I’m voting for X’s party” or “I’m voting for X to form the government” would be more correct.

You live in a parliamentary monarchy

No. It’s a Constitutional Monarchy and a Parliamentary Democracy.

where government executives and leaders are never, ever elected. They are always, and have been always appointed by the Queen.

The party leader of the party that wins the most seats in the election is asked by the Queen, or more accurately for the self-governing Dominions, H.M.’s representative, the Governor-General, to form a government. She cannot ask anyone other than the party with the most seats to form a government. (I’m not going to spend 10 minutes describing how a minority government works or forms a government because there are too many hypotheticals to enumerate.)

All the MPs are elected individually–that’s democracy; and in Canada the party leaders are chosen by ballot at a party convention where party members or their delegates vote.

Our versions of the executive and legislative branches of government are not separate entities like America’s but are one.

have been always appointed by the Queen.

No. The Queen asks the party leader with the most seats in the House of Commons to form Her government. (And the party with the second highest seat count becomes the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.)

I defy you to produce an actual ballot that has a Prime minister, Head of State, Commander in Chief, Premier or any other executive position on it.

That’s correct that we don’t have direct elections of those positions. The Queen is the Head of State. The PM is Head of Government. There is no rank of C-in-C, either civilian or military, in the UK or the Dominions. The PM, the Minister of Defence, and the military all have different roles to play in running the military during peacetime and wartime with the civilian PM deciding on and ordering the military to achieve the military goals of the government. The PM is the de facto C-in-C in the way that you are incorrectly using that term.

No ballot, no democracy.

We do have ballots. Our ballots are for parties’ candidates running in a riding who hope to win a seat through popular election to the House of Commons.

Your above crap is the equivalent of saying that America isn’t a democracy because the Electoral College “selects” the President and he is not directly elected by “We, the People”.

is driving me crazy!

A pretty short trip for someone who seems to think that the Englsih Civil War never happened; that the year is 1783; doesn’t recognize the role of the Mother of All Parliaments in the founding of your own electoral system; and that ‘the Queen still tells us what to do’.

The perpetual ignorance of British subjects (which means you too Canada) is driving me crazy! If you are a subject in England or Canada, you do not, nor ever have lived in a democracy. You live in a parliamentary monarchy, where government executives and leaders are never, ever elected. They are always, and have been always appointed by the Queen.

This would be analagous to working at a privately owned company that is unionized. As an employee, you might get to vote for a union steward, but are never afforded voting rights on who leads the company itself and who wields executive power.

Canadians and Brits by their nature are bright people but this blatant false assumption about living in a democracy really exhibits wholesale ignorance.

Now before all of you patriots flame me, I defy you to produce an actual ballot that has a Prime minister, Head of State, Commander in Chief, Premier or any other executive position on it.

No ballot, no democracy.

the fact that Canadians just caught a glimpse of how this business operates

It should be an eye opener for Americans also. How the media edits and reedits. The gibson interview should have already alerted Americans.

One of the reasons this is newsworthy, is that if current Conservative Prime Minister Harper had the same sort of interview, the media would have aired it immediately. Airing it only after having doubts because they wanted to protect Dion shows how biased the media is towards liberal candidates.

Additionally, being a bilingual country, it’s pretty much a rule that you can only become Prime Minister if you fluently speak both languages. How many amazingly talented politicians has Canada missed out on as potential Prime Ministers because their French wasn’t up to par even if they come from all English parts of Canada? English speaking politicians have had their poor French critiqued enough in the past to make this an issue.

Can’t believe Canada’s liberal media is airing it. That would NEVER happen here with Obama.

They’re spinning it against Harper, which is why they’re giving it so much air time, to show how cruel ‘heartless Harper’ is. (The MSM has painted him as a cold fish for years; and as “being insensitive to the poor” over the financial crisis for the past 10 days.)

Re. double standards here’s how the MSM treated the Western Canadian leaders of two small-c conservative parties: Stockwell Day and Preston Manning.

The MSM has also been mischaracterizing this as Harper calling Dion a retard who can’t understand English when Harper has only been criticizing Dion for not having an answer to the question of what he would have done differently and what he would do now.

Day 1: “I won’t run negative ads”

Day 2: “we made a bedroom into the exercise room, and the future occupant of this house (the ‘minority party leader house’, so whoever loses the election lives there), if the future occupant is current PM stephen harper, then he can lose weight, because he is overweight, and has all those extra pounds no?”

Wife: SNICKER! SNICKER! SNICKER!

…..if a toothpick of a French-speaker making fat jokes at an English-speaker can’t make you mad, find a new party….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLgROKejBGo

You ought to have a look at Stephen Taylor’s latest posting as well, and you’ll see just how deep the hypocrisy runs:

Who typed your replys for you?

Full disclosure first: I am an Atlantic Canadian (living abroad) and am familiar with the work of the interviewer (Steve Murphy). Traditionally, I voted for Dion’s party until, some years ago, I realized they were just moving too far to the left and I couldn’t support them any more (Atlantic Candian Liberals tend to be more centre right than their Toronto counterparts…unfortunately, Toronto rules).

What is happening in this video is some “sauce for the gander”. Murphy has a bit of a reputation as a conservative sympathizer, but primarily as having a bit of an ego. This was a double whammy for him, I think.

Dion’s first language is French, and he is not super strong in English…Harper (the conservative leader) is the same, but in reverse…his French is not that good. For Americans, perhaps, the second language of French may not seem that important, but in Canada it is how we have organized our country (i.e. on the basis of the dual languages…the French were actually in Canada before the English).We have tended to make allowances for Prime Ministers who can’t speak their second language fluently…Chretien had weaknesses in English, Clark (and now Harper) was weak in French.

The vast majority of Canadians accept this…that is why I consider it a bit of a cheap shot to emphasize Dion’s weakness…we know already.

Dion is a decent human being. I wouldn’t vote for him as Prime Minister in a hundred years…his environmental policy is lunacy, he wants higher taxes, is lukewarm on the Afghanistan mission (though,in fairness, he has supported Harper’s position on it and is supportive of the troops..he is not going to abandon the mission) and, most importantly, he lacks real leadership skill.

But he’s a good man, and this kind of personal shot is needlessly cruel.

That said, however, it’s sauce for the gander. The Liberals, and their media allies, have painted Harper and his party as cruel, mean and nasty. Harper’s coldness to the media is as a result of his rotten treatment by the media when he was in opposition…a lot like (but maybe worse than) that received by Gov. Palin.

And so, with a Tory leaning journalist a chance came for a bit of “what goes around comes around”…and this is what happens.

To me it’s kind of ugly.

If a Conservative politician had asked a journalist to “start over” in the middle of giving an answer, would the impartial and objective journalist have been so quick to oblige… twice?

Little bit of Canadian trivia: The Canadian Liberal party alternates between French and English leaders.

Poor Stéphane is an intelligent man who expresses himself masterfully in French but has never mastered “la langue de Shakespeare.” In general, I hate his politics but do feel a little bit sorry for him here. His party will most probably lose next week so maybe he could take some courses if he’s still leader of the Liberal Party the next time around.

He’ll never be Prime Minister of Canada – you cannot have the leader of the country not able to speak the language of 75% of the population….
Paradox Drive on October 10, 2008 at 12:26 PM

I have to disagree PD, Jean Chretien mangled both Official Languages and won re-election.

Did you know English is a controlled substance in Quebec?
Just google “bill 101 quebec”
Why should Americans care? prensa 2 para el inglés
75% of the population rarely advance in the Federal government.

Dion is designated fall guy, the career academic and politician that shot up the middle of a convention none of the Liberal Party heavyweights wanted to win, because they knew the Liberals were going to be out of power for awhile.
The fun part is watching the in-the-tank-for-the-liberals msm up here with their pants around their ankles, smouldering.

I think any Liberal,and boy, Dion is a shining example,
certainly doesn’t need defending,especially how the
Liberal Democratic Party has crashed the global economy!

On a side note though,with the debauchery of the economy,
the price of a barrel of oil is dropping,a hem!!

+Don Martin: A Dion gaffe that shows Harper’s mean streak
+Dion criticizes Harper, CTV over interview
+Tories pounce on Dion tape
+Watch The Video: Dion’s three false starts
+Liberals slam Tories for ‘shamelessly’ attacking Dion