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Canada s Conservative Government Appears Safe But A new Election likely either Fall 2009 or in 2010

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Canada’s minority Conservative government looks to have avoided defeat over its budget, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not be able to relax for too long before talk of an election starts to heat up again.

This site covered the attempt by the three opposition parties in Canada to bring down the current Conservative government with a no-confidence motion. This site predicted that the Conservatives would either win any new election or that the opposition parties would chicken and not bring down the government. The actual result appears to be that the opposition party coalition [at least the Liberals] have chickened out. Various Canadian commenters and bloggers felt that the defeat of the Canadian conservatives was assured as was the replacement by the new coalition. Futurist bloggers such as George Dvorsky of Sentient Developments were wrong. As were various commenters on the web.

Sentient Developments: Coalition governments in Canada: The new normal? Wrong.

Sentient Developments: New Liberal leader: Canada’s Obama.

Reuters saying the downfall of the Conservatives as nearly assured: Various news sources/reporters were wrong.

UPDATE:Conservatives agreed to giving updates on the budget implementation. So will gain Liberal support and avoid no-confidence motion.

Michael Ignatieff, the new and assertive leader of the opposition Liberals, outlined a series of conditions on Wednesday for backing the budget, ensuring the document was likely to be adopted by Parliament.

The Liberals’ confident tone is remarkable, given that in last October’s election, under previous leader Stephane Dion, the party put in one of its worst ever performances.

One of the many reasons for the poor showing was the fact that the Liberals — short of money, dispirited and keen to avoid a new election while trailing in the polls — often backed the Conservatives on key confidence votes, giving an impression of weakness.

Although Ignatieff has much less time for compromise, he, like Dion before him, is again backing the government. The leaders of both other opposition parties mocked his decision and predicted Ignatieff would continue to find reasons to support Harper.