Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Sail on, sail on, oh mighty ship of state,
To the shores of need, past the reefs of greed, through the squalls of hate
So, some time ago, I was poised to offer my analysis of why Paul Martin would be stupid to call an election on same-sex marriage. When it became clear that Martin had never threatened to do any such thing, I decided not to bother with the analysis, but I'm still going to throw a piece of it out here. Paul Martin would be stupid to call an election over same-sex marriage because the greatest threat to Erwin Cotler's same-sex marriage legislation is the same Liberal MPs whose re-election Martin would presumably be urging during the campaign of the election, nominally over same-sex marriage.
Consider that the current standings in the House of Commons are as follows:
134 Liberal
99 Conservative
54 Bloc
19 NDP
2 Independent
All parties except the Liberals are pretty much united on this issue - the Conservatives will vote against (with the four exceptions of Gerald Keddy, James Moore, Jim Prentice, Belinda Stronach) with the New Democrats (minus Bev Desjarlais) and the Bloc (minus half a dozen MPs of whom you've never heard) will vote in favour. Both independents (Chuck Cadwell and Carolyn Parrish) are expected to vote against. That puts the standings, assuming a full Commons (ha!), at 70 Yes, 104 No. This is, of course, before the Liberals come into things. It will take at least 85 Liberals - or ~63% - voting in favour to guarantee the Bill fair passage. In other words, anything better than an even split in Liberal ranks will let the Bill pass. Martin should get that, since even the most pessimistic reports don't have more than forty-three Liberals voting against the legislation (noteworthies on that list include cabinet minister Joe Comuzzi, former cabinet ministers Wayne Easter, Roger Gallaway, David Kilgour, and Lawrence MacAuley, Speaker Peter Milliken - who will be unlikely to actually cast a vote, what with him being the Speaker, and all - and raving space loon Tom Wappel). But if, for some reason - and I can't think of any such reason offhand, since absences are much more likely to benefit the Yes side than the No side - an election on the issue did occur, it would be a little rich for Paul Martin to simultaneously urge Canadians to elect him PM to legalize gay marriage and to elect several dozen anti-gay marriage Liberal MPs, no?
Hopefully, this will convince some voters of the absurdity of "voting the party".
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To the shores of need, past the reefs of greed, through the squalls of hate
So, some time ago, I was poised to offer my analysis of why Paul Martin would be stupid to call an election on same-sex marriage. When it became clear that Martin had never threatened to do any such thing, I decided not to bother with the analysis, but I'm still going to throw a piece of it out here. Paul Martin would be stupid to call an election over same-sex marriage because the greatest threat to Erwin Cotler's same-sex marriage legislation is the same Liberal MPs whose re-election Martin would presumably be urging during the campaign of the election, nominally over same-sex marriage.
Consider that the current standings in the House of Commons are as follows:
134 Liberal
99 Conservative
54 Bloc
19 NDP
2 Independent
All parties except the Liberals are pretty much united on this issue - the Conservatives will vote against (with the four exceptions of Gerald Keddy, James Moore, Jim Prentice, Belinda Stronach) with the New Democrats (minus Bev Desjarlais) and the Bloc (minus half a dozen MPs of whom you've never heard) will vote in favour. Both independents (Chuck Cadwell and Carolyn Parrish) are expected to vote against. That puts the standings, assuming a full Commons (ha!), at 70 Yes, 104 No. This is, of course, before the Liberals come into things. It will take at least 85 Liberals - or ~63% - voting in favour to guarantee the Bill fair passage. In other words, anything better than an even split in Liberal ranks will let the Bill pass. Martin should get that, since even the most pessimistic reports don't have more than forty-three Liberals voting against the legislation (noteworthies on that list include cabinet minister Joe Comuzzi, former cabinet ministers Wayne Easter, Roger Gallaway, David Kilgour, and Lawrence MacAuley, Speaker Peter Milliken - who will be unlikely to actually cast a vote, what with him being the Speaker, and all - and raving space loon Tom Wappel). But if, for some reason - and I can't think of any such reason offhand, since absences are much more likely to benefit the Yes side than the No side - an election on the issue did occur, it would be a little rich for Paul Martin to simultaneously urge Canadians to elect him PM to legalize gay marriage and to elect several dozen anti-gay marriage Liberal MPs, no?
Hopefully, this will convince some voters of the absurdity of "voting the party".
