While Canadian politics is not a topic that extempers are accustomed to speaking about at great length, the last month has slowly began to change that evaluation. Loyal readers of the SpeechGeek HOTtopics services know that several weeks ago I wrote a topic brief concerning the outcome of the Canadian elections, elections which strengthened the Conservative Party but denied Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper a majority government. While analysts debated how long Harper’s government could hold on, and my earlier topic brief indicated that the government would last until the summer, just several weeks into its term the government has been thrown into a crisis, as opposition parties have unified to oust Harper and the Conservative government from power.
Due to the fact that extempers may not be as aware as the rules for a parliamentary government that would allow for such a change to take place and because this political drama is practically unheard of for Canada, I thought that it would be important to resist the Canadian political situation in this week’s brief. This brief will provide some background of what led up to this recent political crisis and what the latest developments are, how parliamentary procedure allows this to occur, and what the future of Harper’s current government looks like.