Talk:2008–2009 Canadian parliamentary dispute

2010 Prorogation

The 2010 prorogation, and the events associated with it, is only incidentally connected to the topic of this article. That section should be excised immediately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.238.29 (talk) 03:15, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I've trimmed it, but there is enough of a connection between the prorogation fight and the initial dispute that it is not out of bounds to include it. -Rrius (talk) 04:46, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Jim Travers article

This was posted today on a blog, in relation to the current "Harper government" rebranding campaign/controversy - an article by the late Jim Travers on how what he calls "the coalition crisis" has played into making this a more American system, and is a departure from the Canadian norm. I un-watchlisted this article quite a while ago because of the direction it was going in and the clear activities of spinners here, so haven't even looked to see if it's anything but a neutralized, toothless, "objective/NPOV" tract that makes everythying sound peachykeen or just boring......but reading the Travers article brought to mind that being NPOV shouldn't mean being censored or neutralized beyond relevance/intelligence.Skookum1 (talk) 21:33, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

WP editorializing in "rebutting" Harper's quote

Miesianiacal: "rm. baseless claim" for my edit? I changed something said in Wikipedia's voice to rephrase it as an argument by Coalition proponents. Unless you mean it's baseless that Coalition people used that argument, which is bizarre and false. Anyway, your change is still problematic to my view:

On November 28, 2008, Stephen Harper referred to the accord between the Liberals and NDP as undemocratic backroom dealing, stating that the opposition parties were "overturning the results of an election a few weeks later in order to form a coalition that nobody voted for," even though the election did, in fact, result in opposition parties and independent MPs collectively holding 165 seats, compared with the Conservatives' 143.

Those figures are undoubtedly true. But they're from you and phrased as "Wikipedia's counter" to Harper with the "even though" and "in fact" parts, implying that Harper was somehow incorrect. Selection of which facts to highlight and where easily steps into POV, so I'd be much happier if this could be changed to a rebuttal from a Coalition proponent, e.g. "Joe Brown responded the Coalition really had a majority." There are facts that help both sides; how would the following passage look:

Stephane Dion stated that "Harper has no 'right' to his position; if he can't defeat a vote of no confidence, he shouldn't be Prime Minister", even though the Conservatives had, in fact, won a decisive plurality and Dion's Liberals had just lost 26 seats in the previous election.

Such a passage would be Wikipedia being blatantly pro-Conservative. Your passage above has the same problem, just it's pro-Coalition instead. It should either be removed or directly attributed to someone who said something along those lines. SnowFire (talk) 20:50, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the claim you inserted about the coalition supporters was baseless, as in: it had no supporting reference. The point that more there were more MPs in the opposition benches than in the government's isn't a coalition supporters' argument, anyway; it's simply a fact, as you admit. So, I'm a little unclear on what you're objecting to. Is it that there's no cite supplied to affirm it? If so, one can be easily found. And, if the wording is a bit off - an observation with which I might agree - feel free to tweak it to your satisfaction. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

And the hypothetical passage above about the Liberals losing 26 seats is "just a fact" as "you would admit" as well. Look, *both* sides can cite facts that support them: the Conservatives did not have a true majority (the Coalition point) but they did have a plurality that the most recent election had expanded (the Conservative point). As phrased currently Wikipedia is calling Harper out as being wrong and implying that he's denying / obscuring the fact that he only had a plurality. I think it's safe to assume that Harper knew he only had a plurality, and that Coalition proponents would want to emphasize the fact that he still didn't have a majority.

As for "baseless," yes, there's no attribution currently. That's Wikipedia style, to slap a tag request down to fix it with the {{who}} tag. I'd rather that point be kept and eventually attributed, but I'd rather it be removed altogether than the passage kept as an unattributed POV interjection.

Also, the other passage I removed and you restored:

Political satirist and commentator Rick Mercer critiqued the entire affair as "embarrassing" and denounced the Conservatives' claims about affronts to democracy and coups as wilful lies. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081205.wPOLmercer1205/BNStory/politics/home

"Sourced" material that badly mischaracterizes the source is in some ways worse than nothing at all, as it looks legit. Like I said, I *read the source* and that summary does violence to it - "willful lies" is far stronger than the tone actually used. He's accusing Harper of hyperbole and bluster, not deception. Even if he HAD said that, he's a humorist with no particular access to read Harper's mind anyway. Furthermore, there must have been thousands of editorials written on the affair anyway - it's not clear to me why this particular one by a humorist is especially important. People like Stephen Colbert or PJ O'Rourke can legitly be put into some articles on US politics but that's the exception, not the rule for someone's thoughts to be worthy of their own personal paragraph. Without the "willful lies" part that leaves Mercer saying the affair was "embarassing" which isn't really interesting. SnowFire (talk) 22:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

You have some odd interpretations of things, including Wikipedia guidelines. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If you're referring to the "who" tag, it's no different than slapping "citation needed" on possibly worthy content that nevertheless needs a reference. SnowFire (talk) 17:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Formation of a coalition

This is a great, great, article guys. Awesome work. I wonder, though, if there is a place for references and information from Brian Topp's book, "How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot: The inside story behind the coalition". I thought it surprising that it isn't currently listed as a reference. Moreover, it's apparently clear in his book that informal discussions about a coalition between the NDP and Liberals were occurring before the Fiscal Update and the election. Akiracee (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

File:Ignatieff-1.jpg Nominated for Deletion

	An image used in this article, File:Ignatieff-1.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Media without a source as of 1 August 2011 What should I do?
	A discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 14:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)