Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving to all of you out there. We do everything first up here. :-)
Tomorrow, for instance, we have our federal election (after a campaign of only 30-some days, rather than the two-year super-marathon of US elections). We have five political parties seriously in the running (though probably only four will actually get seats in Parliament -- the *Green* Party is polling at around 10% nationally, but its support too spread out to win any individual ridings ["districts" in US-speak]). The other parties are the *Conservatives* (who won they last election), the *Liberals* (who have were the government from 1993-2006), the *New Democrats* (social democrats), and the *Bloc Quebecois* (a left-leaning separatist party from Quebec that typically polls around 10% nationally but gets 45-55 seats in parliament because their support is concentrated in Quebec ridings). As in the US, the stock market/banking downturn has become the surprise over-riding issue. Early in the campaign, the state of the economy was hardly on the political radar. Now it is practically all anyone is talking about. The collapse has not been so bad here as in the US because sub-prime mortgages were not allowed in Canada. However, four of the "big five" banks in Canada were heavily invested in US "commercial paper" (as it is called) and, thus, have suffered serious losses. None of them have gone broke or needed government bailouts (yet) though. The Candian dollar has plunged from around $0.98US to around $0.85US in about two weeks, mainly because of the accompanying drop in oil prices. The likely outcome will be another minority Conservative government. That means (for those of you not familiar with Parliamentary government) that no party has a majority of seats in parliament. The party with the most seats typically forms the government, but has to form alliances with other parties in order to pass any legislation. And, if they start to act badly, they can be gotten rid of by a simple parliamentary vote. Then, usually, new elections are called, though it is possible for the next-largest party to be asked if it can form a government, sometimes in coalition with another party. For news coverage of the Canadian election, go to CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/ For coverage of recent polls see this site: http://www.nodice.ca/elections/canada/index.php For riding-by-riding coverage and projections of the outcome, try this site: http://www.democraticspace.com/canada2008/ For some of the best electoral vote projections in the US election check out this site: http://www.electoral-vote.com/ Happy, happy! Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
