Tories fall, election set for May

OTTAWA - After more than five years as the leader of minority government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally lost the confidence of the House of Commons on Friday and will ask Gov. Gen. David Johnston Saturday morning to dissolve Parliament for a general election widely expected to be held on May 2.

No prime minister of a minority government in Canada's history went as long as Harper without losing a vote of confidence.
"The vote today, which obviously disappoints me, will, I suspect, disappoint most Canadians," Harper told reporters shortly after his government fell.
"Mr. Ignatieff and his coalition partners in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois made abundantly clear that they had already decided they wanted to force an election instead -- Canada's fourth election in seven years, an election Canadians had told them clearly that they do not want."
Harper said that, instead of an election, Canadians, in his opinion, would have preferred Parliament to have approved his budget, "the next phase of Canada's economic action plan," he called it, that "is critically important to Canada's economic recovery."
But his opponents said it was time for a change, that the government's priorities were not those of Canadians and, and that Harper was displaying what Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said was "a repugnant attitude"
and an "ideological agenda."
The motion that brought the government down was not, technically, a rejection of the budget. Instead, MPs were asked if they agreed "with the finding of the standing committee on procedure and house affairs that the government is in contempt of Parliament, which is unprecedented in Canadian parliamentary history, and consequently, the House has lost confidence in the government."
Liberals, Bloquistes and New Democrats - all 156 of them - voted in favour.
Conservatives and the two independent MPs - all 145 - voted against.
"We have a government whose most senior members stand accused of electoral fraud. We have a prime minister who appointed, as his top advisor, someone who served prison time for stealing money from his clients, someone who now faces accusations of influence peddling and is under an RCMP investigation,"

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told the House of Commons.

"Canadians look at that picture and they say, 'We have had enough.' This House has had enough -- enough of the abuse of power and enough of the bad economic choices. It is time for a change."
NDP Leader Jack Layton was the last of the three opposition leaders to finally conclude he could not support the Harper government.
"Mr. Harper has demonstrated that he and his Conservatives have really no interest in working with other parties. He made a choice, and that choice was to take us into an election," Layton said. "And so our goal is to lay out a program that will put families first, as we've always done, and to defeat Conservatives in this upcoming election."

My Opinion :

I believe that Mr. Harper is a valuable Prime Minister in Canada, there is truly no need for an election other then the fact that Micheal Ignatia requests the need for one. This is only the fourth election in Canada over the past 7 years and is truly a controversial issue itself. Mr. Harper has reigned proudly and strongly in Canada, living up to the majority of expectations which is most important. Due to the fact that Stephens minority government lost the confidence vote, there will be an election, but needless to say in my opinion I believe that Stephen and his party will be re-elected. Due to the fact that the Liberal Party did recieve the Confidence vote there may be room for an upset in the election for the Conservative party. This election could possibly change the reign of government of Canada from Conservative to Liberal which will/might be a huge change for Canadian citizens due to the fact that the conservative party has been in reign for quite some time.