Harper has concluded an over two hour meeting with the Governor General and has had his request to porogue parliament granted. The move is clearly to avoid confidence motions scheduled to take place in the House on Monday. While he’s busy accusing the Liberal-NDP coalition of making a power grab, he’s made it just as clear that he will cling to power at all cost. Had the GG not consented to his request, which she could have refused since it was clearly an avoidance move, then she would have had to have chosen between an election, barely 2 months after the last one, or asking the Liberal-NDP coalition to take the reigns.
As much as I would have preferred to see Harper face the music on Monday, the GG’s decision is not all bad. When it comes to power grabs and the subversion of the democractic process, none of the clowns in Parliament have a finger to point at anyone. It would be nice if the GG imposed some conditions on Harper, starting with the ultra partisanship leaving the scene. The blatant lies and distortions gone would be nice too but that is way too much to hope for.
Harper created this situation. He and his inner circle needs to pay the price probably more so than any other Conservative. That band of thugs now know that the Opposition will not be a whipping post for their attacks. Maybe now Harper can get down to doing what he should have established two years ago, striving toward compromise and consensus to make parliament work instead of the arrogance of the bully that he is.
One would have thought that the Canadian people allowing him only another minority when he created the need for us to spend $300 million in October that he would have got the clue that he hasn’t gained the confidence of the people any more than the other three leaders. His own party revolting against him right now would really help to ratchet down the rhetoric in Ottawa as it would place both the major parties in the position of being tied up in a leadership race.
More moderate interim leadership would go a long way to changing the tone in the House. Failing the removal of Harper, it appears if he learns nothing else from his colossal blunder, the Opposition has had enough. The threat of very real non-confidence votes is more real than he’s ever experienced. His practice of governing as though he has a majority by declaring every issue and its brother a confidence matter just ground to an abrupt halt.
He’s going to have to learn to reach out and actually listen to MPs aka leaders which he politically disagrees with yet might just have a sense of what direction the country needs to go in. He will need to bend enough to find common ground if he wishes to remain as PM. My guess is that he’s going to try to provoke an election before the Liberals have a leader in the hopes that he can gain a majority. His lies and distortions are plausible enough that he manages to gain the support of Canadians who don’t really pay a lot of attention to or understand how things work, so, a majority could be possible.
One thing that hurt the Liberals badly in the last election was their record of abstentions in the last Parliament. The fact that they have now stood up to Harper and if they continue to do so may work in their favour depending on how well they present their actions. They are going to need to do some serious presentation work after last night’s speech to the nation. Between the tape being late and poorly produced, that doesn’t sit well. Dion had far better content of his remarks than Harper even came close to but it was overshadowed by the amateur presentation.
As for power grabs, let’s not be fooled by that smoke screen. They are all after power and to serve their own egos with a side dish of what is good for Canada. That is a reality that has been one of the few constants in politics the world over.
notice: The content of this post contains my opinions and my right to express them. I will respect your right to express your opinion in the comments as long as you’re not abusive and you respect my right to my opinion.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I disagree.
I’ve always been in favour of maintaining the Governor General and the Crown in Canada, but if this isn’t an abuse of Prime Ministerial authority that requires the Governor General to stand up to him and deny his request, I’m not sure there’s any reason not to abolish the position.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
At first blush it appears you may be right in that the GG should have denied him. My sense is that since the meeting went over two hours when it was expected to take about 20 minutes that she either had some powerful persuading or she laid the law down (so to speak) about what expects the country should get in return for her allowing Harper a reprieve from facing the music on Monday.
I tend to be a believer in giving someone enough rope they can hang themselves. Harper will either take this as the close call it was and learn from it, or he will repeat the same thing over again. If that is the case, I rather doubt anyone could reasonably argue that if she refused a second proroguing request she was out of line.
If she had refused this one, the spin would be that she was in bed with the separatists and playing to the coalition to give them power. By allowing Harper to bring forth a budget and an opportunity to either act in a manner that keeps the coalition at bay and the government somewhat stable or he blows it again and forces the confidence vote on himself through the defeat of the budget.
We have to keep in mind that we’re dealing with someone in Harper who is relentless, unprincipled and cold-blooded in going after what he wants. A little thing like telling the unvarnished truth has never occurred to him, unless it happens to suit his current agenda.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
[...] Parliament Suspended – Harper Has Reprieve, For Now …had to have chosen between an election, barely … the subversion of the democractic process, none … when he created the need for us to [...]