What an interesting, bombshell of a day for Canadian politics. Belinda Stronach just announced that she has crossed the floor to the Liberals. I guess it’s like BC’s referendum for the STV, single-transferrable vote. You make your first pick and if that doesn’t work, you can vote for your second preferred party. The press conference was less exciting than the TV show Crossing Over with John Edward, but there were still some laughs and pale faces, the essence of good reality TV.
And the Queen arrives today, so should the government lose the budget vote despite Crossing Over with Belinda Stronach, the Queen will be on hand to dissolve parliament. Nifty twist to the itinerary. (CBC says Clarkson would still do the job, but it looks like it could be an interesting week in politics nonetheless.) And if the federal political mess isn’t enough, today is BC Elections day.
Bill Mountain gets my vote. He’s not on the ballot but he was by far the most tenacious solicitor of my vote.
UPDATE: CBC reported May 18 that the referendum result on electoral reform was 57% Yes and 43% no. In order to go ahead with STV, the Yes side needed 60% of all ballots cast as well as a majority in 60% of the ridings. So the political parties are saying it is a strong enough Yes that they’ll keep looking at it. I suppose that means if the collective memory of the citizens is strong enough and the pestering continues, so will the “looking at it”.