Canadian government toppled by non-confidence vote

[KiloVictor]

No, vote of no confidence is not like an impeachment in the US. 

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As you know, the "vote of no confidence" may be called due to shady behavior as well, but it can also be called based on sheer incompetence.  We have no real  analogue for the "you're fired because your policies and decisions are appalling and we have no confidence that you'll get smarter soon enough to unscrew the mess you have made.  We (the majority vote) all agree that you suck irrecoverably at this governing thing." 
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Minor nit: This is AFAIK the first time in the Canadian parliamentary system that an explicit vote of non-confidence has been held. The Opposition put forward a motion stating simply that the government no longer held the confidence of the House (i.e. of all the elected members) and won a vote on it. To date, when a government has fallen on a confidence motion, it's because they lost vote on a matter which is considered a "confidence vote". British parliamentary tradition (which Canada inherited) holds that only certain votes are matters of confidence - the annual budget is the prime example, and any money bills are by definition confidence votes. If the government fails to carry a simple majority in the House on any of those votes, it is deemed to have lost the confidence of the House.

Because Canada has a multi-party system, it is possible for a party to have the most seats of any party, but still have less than a majority in the House - the current situtation for the Liberals. In a minority government, they are forced to seek support from one of the other Opposition parties (or independent members of the House) to get their budget and money bills passed, and in theory they should govern in a more consultative and consenual manner than a party with an absolute majority. Minority governments are a basically sign that the voters trust none of the parties enough to hand over unfettered control of the government. :)

Anyhow, having lost a confidence vote means the Prime Minister must then ask the Governor-General (as the representative of the Crown) to dissolve the House and call a national election. In this case it doesn't mean that "you're fired" as you stated above so much as it means that "we think it's politically expedient for us to bring down the government now because we think we can get more of our people elected than you will". The majority of Canadians haven't significantly changed their opinions on the parties since the last election, and therefore will very likely elect a House that looks very much like this one. Time will of course tell if that holds true.

So this election is extraordinary in that it's the first time in history (modern history at least) that the Opposition has arbitrarily decided to force a national vote - usually it happens when the House can't reach agreement on the budget or significant issues of national policy. In those cases, the system arguably functions as designed: the elected representatives can't agree on how to govern the country, so they take it to the people.

This is different because the Opposition is basically making a naked play for power. And the stakes this time are high - this will be the end of the line for one or more of the party leaders. In the case of the governing Liberals, having won a narrow majority last time and losing the House this time would likely mean the end of Mr. Martin's career as leader of the party. By the same token, forcing an election and then losing ground in the vote would mean the end of the line for Mr. Harper (Conservative party leader) and Mr. Layton (NDP party leader) on the Opposition side of the House. Traditionally, any leader that loses two elections from the Opposition side of the House is done.

What the Conservatives hope to do is upset the Liberals and form the government. However if the voters get annoyed enough at them for forcing a winter election, they may smack the Conservatives down. The risk for the Conservatives is high, and the benefit they get by forcing the election now is minimal, since the government had already pledged to call an election around the end of February with a vote around the end of March or mid-April. So for the sake of pushing the vote up by three months, they've taken the risk of looking like their ambition for power trumped common sense (as Mr. Martin put it in the opening salvo of the campaign).

I'm frankly flabbergasted that the people running the party would take that risk for what looks like a marginal benefit. It will be a very interesting election.

~Kv