Oophorectomy

Oophorectomy is the surgical removal of the ovaries of a female animal. In the case of non-human animals, this is also called spaying. It is a form of sterilization.

The removal of the ovaries together with the Fallopian tubes is called salpingo-oophorectomy. Oophorectomy and salpingo-oophorectomy are not common forms of birth control in humans; more usual is tubal ligation, in which the Fallopian tubes are blocked but the ovaries remain intact.

In humans, oophorectomy is most usually performed together with a hysterectomy - the removal of the uterus. Its use in a hysterectomy when there are no other health problems is somewhat controversial.

In animals, spaying involves an invasive removal of the ovaries, but rarely has major complications; the superstition that it causes weight gain is not based on fact. Spaying is especially important for certain animals that require the ovum to be released at a certain interval (called estrus or "heat"), such as cats and dogs. If the cell is not released during these animal's heat, it can cause severe medical problems that can be averted by spaying or partnering the animal with a male.

Oophorectomy is sometimes referred to as castration, but that term is most often used to mean the removal of a male animal's testicles.

See also


Canadian federal election, 2004

(Redirected from 2004 Canadian election)
Politics of Canada

A Canadian federal election (more formally, the 38th general election) was held on June 28, 2004. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin lost its majority, but was able to form a minority government after the elections. The main opposition party, the Conservative Party of Canada, improved its position but did not win as many seats as hoped.

200px

On May 23, 2004, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the advice of Martin, ordered the dissolution of the House of Commons. Following a 36-day campaign, voters elected 308 Members of the House of Commons.

The House of Commons after the 2004 election
Enlarge
The House of Commons after the 2004 election

All three major national parties had changed their leaders since the 2000 elections. Although the election was initially widely expected to be a relatively easy romp for Martin to a fourth consecutive Liberal majority government, during the campaign many began instead to predict a far more closely-fought election. Polls started to indicate the possibility of a minority government for the Liberals, or even a minority Conservative government, fueling speculation of coalitions with the other parties. In the end, the Liberals fared better than the final opinion polls had led them to fear, but not well enough to win a majority.

On election day, polling times were arranged to allow results from most provinces to be announced more or less simultaneously, with the exception of Atlantic Canada, where results were known before the close of polling in other provinces.

Contents

Results

Main article: Results of the Canadian federal election, 2004

A party must hold 155 seats to form a majority government. The Liberals came short of this number, winning 135. Until extremely close ridings were decided on the west coast, it appeared as though the Liberals' seat total, if combined with that of the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP), would be sufficient to hold a majority in the House of Commons. In the end, the Conservatives won Vancouver Island North, West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast, and New Westminster-Coquitlam, after trailing in all three ridings, as sub-totals were announced through the evening.

As a result, the combined seat count of the Liberals and the NDP was 154, while the other 154 seats belonged to the Conservatives, Bloquistes, and one independent Chuck Cadman (previously a Conservative). This could signal an evenly-split house; however, some indications suggested that, rather than forming an official coalition with the NDP, the Liberal party would attempt to lead with a minority government, obtaining majorities for their legislation on an ad hoc basis.

Voter turnout nationwide was 60.9% [1] http://www.elections.ca/gen/rep/re2/stat2004_e.pdf , with 13,683,570 out of 22,466,621 registered voters casting their ballots. This was comparable to the turnout of 64.1% [2] http://www.elections.ca/gen/rep/37g/table3_e.html in the 2000 federal election.

National


Party Party Leader Seats Popular Vote
Before After % Change # %
Liberal Paul Martin 168 135 -19.6 4,951,107 36.7
Conservative Stephen Harper 72 99 +37.5 3,994,682 29.6
Bloc Québécois Gilles Duceppe 33 54 +63.6 1,672,874 12.4
New Democratic Jack Layton 14 19 +35.7 2,116,536 15.7
Green Jim Harris 0 0 0 582,247 4.3
Christian Heritage Ron Gray   0 0 40,283 0.3
Marijuana Marc-Boris St-Maurice 0 0 0 33,590 0.3
Progressive Canadian Ernie Schreiber   0 0 10,773 0.1
Marxist-Leninist Sandra L. Smith 0 0 0 9,065 0.1
Canadian Action Connie Fogal 0 0 0 8,930 0.1
Communist Miguel Figueroa 0 0 0 4,568 0.0
Libertarian Jean-Serge Brisson   0 0 1,964 0.0
Independent 10 0 N/A 47,596 0.4
No Affiliation 0 1 N/A 17,465 0.1
Vacant 4 0 N/A    
Total 301 308 +2.3 13,489,559 100.0
Other elections: 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2005?
Sources: http://www.elections.ca -- History of Federal Ridings since 1867 http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/process/house/hfer/hfer.asp?Language=E


n.a. = not applicable - party was not recognized in previous election

10 closest ridings

  1. Western Arctic, NT: Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Lib) def. Dennis Bevington (NDP) by 53 votes
  2. Jeanne-Le Ber, QC: Liza Frulla (Lib) def. Thierry St-Cyr (BQ) by 72 votes
  3. Simcoe—Grey , ON: Helena Guergis (Cons) def. Paul Bonwick (Lib) by 100 votes
  4. New Westminster—Coquitlam , BC: Paul Forseth (Cons) def. Steve McClurg (NDP) by 113 votes
  5. Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK: Tom Lukiwski (Cons) def. Gary Anderson (Lib) by 122 votes
  6. Palliser, SK: Daver Batters (Cons) def. Dick Proctor (NDP) by 124 votes
  7. Edmonton—Beaumont , AB: David Kilgour (Lib) def. Tim Uppal (Cons) by 134 votes
  8. Cambridge, ON: Gary Goodyear (Cons) def. Janko Peric (Lib) by 224 votes
  9. Kildonan—St. Paul , MB: Joy Smith (Cons) def. Terry Duguid (Lib) by 278 votes
  10. Northumberland—Quinte West, ON: Paul Macklin (Lib) def. Doug Galt (Cons) by 313 votes


Seat by Seat breakdown

Notes

Major Parties

Main article: List of political parties in Canada

Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party of Canada

Until the sponsorship scandal, most pundits were predicting that new Prime Minister Paul Martin would lead the Liberals to a fourth majority government, possibly setting a record for number of seats won.

However, polls released immediately after the scandal broke showed Liberal support down as much as 10% nationwide, with greater declines in its heartland of Quebec and Ontario. Although there was some recovery in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, Liberal hopes of making unprecedented gains in the west faded. The unopularity of some provincial Liberal parties may also have had an effect on federal Liberal fortunes. In Ontario, for instance, the provincial Liberal government introduced an unpopular budget the week of the expected election call, and their federal counterparts then fell into a statistical dead heat with the Conservatives in polls there. The Liberals were also harmed by high profile party infighting that have been plaguing the party since Martin's earlier ejection from Cabinet by now-former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

The campaign was criticized openly by Liberal candidates, one incumbent Liberal comparing it to the Keystone Kops.

Conservative Party of Canada

The Conservative Party of Canada

In the final months of 2003, the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance were running a distant third and fourth, respectively, in public opinion polls.

Many pundits predicted that the combination of the popular and fiscally conservative Martin, along with continued vote-splitting on the right, could have led to the almost total annihilation of the Progressive Conservatives and Canadian Alliance. This fear prompted those two parties to form a united Conservative Party of Canada, which was approved by the members of the Canadian Alliance on December 5, 2003 and controversially by the delegates of the Progressive Conservatives on December 6, 2003.

The new Conservative Party pulled well ahead of the NDP in the polls just before the election, although its support remained below the combined support that the Progressive Conservatives and the Alliance had as separate parties. On March 20 the Conservatives elected Stephen Harper as their new leader.

The Conservatives gained more ground in polls after Harper became leader, and the poll results in the weeks before the election had them within one to two points of the Liberals, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind them. Party supporters hoped that the voters would react negatively to the Liberal attacks on Harper's agenda, and that anger over the sponsorship scandal and other Liberal failures would translate to success at the polls. Although on the eve of the election the party was polling slightly ahead of the Liberals everywhere west of Quebec, it had dropped in support, polling behind or an par with Liberals everywhere except Alberta and British Columbia, where it held onto its traditional support. All together the new Conservatives fell from the combined Canadian Alliance-Progressive Conservative vote in 2000 of 37%, to only 29% of the vote indicating that many former Tories did not vote for the new party.

New Democratic Party

The New Democratic Party

Before the announcement of the union of the right-of-centre parties, some were predicting an NDP official opposition, with the NDP polling ahead of both right-of-centre parties. A new leader (Jack Layton) and clear social democratic policies helped revitalize the NDP. Polls suggested that the NDP had returned to the 18% to 20% level of support it enjoyed in the 1984 Canadian election and 1988 Canadian election. Layton suggested that the NDP would win more than the 43 seats won under Ed Broadbent, who would be elected to Parliament, returning after many years of absence.

The NDP focused the campaign on winning ridings in Canada's urban centres, hoping especially to pick off seats in central Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and Winnipeg. The party's platform was built to cater to these regions and much of Layton's time was spent in these areas.

The campaign stumbled early when the Liberals attacked Layton for blaming the deaths of homeless people on Paul Martin. They accused the NDP of negative campaigning. The NDP did benefit from the decline in Liberal support, but not to the same extent as the Conservatives. There was an increasing prospect that NDP voters would switch to the Liberals to block a Conservative government. This concern did not manifest itself in the polls, however, and the NDP remained at somewhat below 20 percent mark in the polls for most of the campaign.

Bloc Québécois

The Bloc Québécois

The Bloc Québécois (BQ) continued to slide in the polls in most of 2003 after the election of the federalist Quebec Liberal Party at the National Assembly of Quebec under Jean Charest, and during the long run-up to Paul Martin becoming leader of the federal Liberals.

However, things progressively changed during 2003, partly because of the Charest government rapidly becoming quite unpopular and partly because the support for independence in Quebec rose again (49% in March http://www.vigile.net/ds-actu/docs4/4-1.html#lpdl2 ). The tide took its sharp turn when, in February 2004, the sponsorship scandal (uncovered in considerable part by the Bloc) hit the liberal federal government.

These events led to a resurgence of the BQ, putting it ahead of the pack once again: according to an Ipsos-Reid poll carried out for the Globe and Mail and CTV between the 4th and the 8th of June, 50% of Quebecers intended to vote for the BQ against 24% for the Liberals.

Speculation was ongoing about the possibility of the Bloc forming alliances with other opposition parties or with an eventual minority government to promote its goals of social democracy and respect of the autonomy of provinces. Leader Gilles Duceppe stated that the Bloc, as before, would co-operate with other opposition parties or with the government when interests were found to be in common, but that the Bloc would not participate in a coalition government.

Minor Parties

Main article: List of political parties in Canada

The following parties did not hold seats in the House of Commons entering the election, and received considerably less media attention throughout the election than their larger competitors. The Greens ran candidates in all 308 ridings; the other parties were running far fewer candidates.


Green Party Jim Harris 308 candidates
Marxist-Leninist Party Sandra L. Smith 76 candidates
Marijuana Party Marc-Boris St-Maurice 71 candidates
Christian Heritage Party Ron Gray 62 candidates
Canadian Action Party Connie Fogal 44 candidates
Communist Party Miguel Figueroa 35 candidates
Progressive Canadian Party Ernie Schreiber 16 candidates
Libertarian Party Jean-Serge Brisson 8 candidates


Campaign Slogans

These are the official slogans for the 2004 campaigns. The optional parts of the mottos (sometimes not used for efficiency) are put in brackets.


Liberal Party Moving [Canada] Forward - Allons [or Aller] droit devant (avec l'Équipe Martin) Choose your Canada
Conservative Party Demand Better - C'est assez!
Bloc Québécois Un parti propre au Québec Parce qu'on est différent (pre-election)
New Democratic Party [New Energy.] A Positive Choice. - [Une force nouvelle.] Un choix Positif.
Green Party Someday is now - L'avenir c'est maintenant
Marijuana Party Let's roll! - Y faut que ça roule!


Issues

Important issues in the election:

Timeline

See Timeline of the Canadian federal election, 2004

Leadership races of 2003 and 2004

Poll results

See Opinion polling for the 2004 Canadian election

See also

External links


Last updated: 01-28-2005 07:05:14