There is an historical power struggle going on right now in Canada. Rather than cut and paste some long articles I'll try to boil it down for y'all.
Canada is a parliamentary democracy, cut into 308 ridings, each of which elect a Member of Parliament (or MP). After each election, the Governal General (GG- more on this job later) asks the leader of the party with the most votes to try and from a government. If this party has a majority of the MPs in the House of commons, this is easy: while some may vote against some legislation, when it is a confidence vote (if the guv loses, an election must be called) they'll all get onside.
But for years we've had minority governments. This is trickier: since the other parties have more MPs in total and thus more votes in the House, if they all gang up they can defeat motions and legislation that the governing party puts forth; they can even win a vote of no-confidence, and force an election. But they have to be careful: if voters feel this has been done frivolously, we've been known to punish parties.
Our current leader, Stephen Harper of the Conservative party, has set a record as the longest serving minority government prime minister in our history. He has clearly grown weary of of pussyfooting around the opposition, and when the largest other party, the Liberals, put up as leader one Stephane Dion, a compromise choice with all the charisma of asthmatic accountant, Harper pounced and called an election. The timing seemed perfect: the Liberals wer strapped for cash, and the Conservatives spent a mint smearing Dion. They looked headed for Harper's first majority government, and a far freer hand in running the country.
Then, 2 weeks before we went to the polls, the economic meltdown hit. The direction of the campaign spun around: what are you gonna do in the face of this new crisis? Amazingly the Conservative platform was: cut some spending and wait to see what happens. While every other government put in a stimulus and/or relief package, Canada's government was proposing to basically do nothing.
The government's momentum was destroyed. They increased their number of seats, but fell a mere 7 short of a majority. Still, it was a strong hand to hold, since it would require unanimity among the opposition parties to resist anything the guv did. What's more: their arch rival Liberals, the only other party that has ever held power, had garnered the fewest votes in their history; their leader was the least popular leader in parliament, and had agreed to step down at their next convention; and their purse was empty. They were probably years away from being able to wage a strong campaign.
Now, to govern. Recession looming; U.S. auto makers on life support, threatening hundreds of thousands of Canuck jobs (we account for 14 percent of of the Big 3's workforce); oil prices plummetting; and after all the pain, sacrifice and discipline to get our public debt under control and in the process of being paid off, probably deficit.
The throne speech, to kick off the new session, was simply incredible: it contained NO meaningful measures to deal with the financial crisis. In stead they said they'd address it in their budget, due out in mid-January, and were completely secretive about what that would entail.
Much worse, they announced that they would save $30 million by cancelling the electoral subsidy. This pays each party a buck fifty per year for every vote they got in the last election. Now, it's easy to get campaign donations when you're in power, since everyone wants your goodwill; but when you're in opposition things are significantly tighter. and like I said, the other parties are broke right now. Without this money they couldn't put up any fight against the government at all.
It was a declaration of war. The opposition parties, the Libs, the New Democratic Party (basically socialists) and the Bloc Quebecois (basically the Quebec separatist party), found the common cause without which they'd have never been able to see eye to eye.
The 3 leaders had a joint press conference, and announced that they had signed an agreement to form a coalition government- combined, they have enough seats in the House to form a majority. Further, they had sent a letter to the GG informing her of their intentions, and placed this coming Monday as the date that they would table a motion of non-confidence. "Mister Prime Minister, you have lost the confidence of the House of Commons. We urge you, in the interest of your country, to accept this gracefully and step down."
The guv, thunderstruck, took the election fudning cut back, and introduced some token recession crisis measures, but clearly it was too late: the other 3 parties had despaired of working with the Cons and were determined to replace them.
Now the GG has 3 options:
1. Grant the government's inevitable request for an election. Normally this is a rubber stamp deal, but we just had an election a scant month ago, so it's expected that she will refuse.
2. Grant their next request, to "prorogue" the next session of parliament. That simply means that they won't convene, therefore can't vote the government out. Of course, this just delays the inevitable.
3. Appoint the coalition government. To some of you, this would seem the obvious choice, since many countries have this happen regularly; but it has never happened in Canada.
The government is going to take option 2, and buy some time to mount a massive publicity campaign to drum up support for the Conservatives, and portray the coalition push as a coup (which it isn't), and a faustian bargain with seperatists (which it kind of is).
Our country, which is enviably prepared for a downturn (guv surplus, although the Cons pissed most of it away on tax cuts; total patriation of debt, i.e. Canuck banks hold it all; and strict investment laws that have kept firms from collapsing thus far)...
Is badly divided, when we can least afford it.