Next week Parliament will once more resume, the second time since the October 14th election. The first sitting lasted a matter of days before Harper’s lapdog Flaherty aka the Finance Minister made an economic statement that accomplished nothing else except getting the three opposition parties talking to each other in a serious way.

Oh, it also brought about a very swift transition of power for the Liberals as Dion left and Ignatieff was installed as leader. He will have to be confirmed as leader at their convention in May but at the rate things are moving, that will be a rubber stamp. Flaherty’s statement provoked the three opposition parties to put together an agreement to form a coalition government to propose to the Governor-General after they had brought down the government on a vote of non-confidence.

Harper responded by showing the steely fortitude that he possesses and running to the GG to ask for parliament to be prorogued, which means to suspend this session of parliament. His reason of course was to sort out how to save his sorry butt to do battle another day. It is rather ironic that the threat of a confidence vote sent him scurrying when he’s been having a ball for two years declaring bills to be matters of confidence and then taunting the opposition to vote against them.

Guess what Harper, you kick a dog often enough, it bites you!

As for the coalition, Harper immediately declared that he and his party were elected by the will of the people and that a coalition would be undemocratic. Well, south of the border where the President is directly elected by the vote of the people and the party that controls the senate and the house are likewise voted on by the people that argument might fly. It only flies in Canada because so many Canadians have such a marginal knowledge of how their government works — that is sad beyond belief.

The individual political party chooses their leader. In a general election, those Canadians who choose to vote, do so in their local riding where the majority of the votes will elect a member of parliament from one of the political parties running in that particular riding. In order to even have a seat in parliament, the leader of each of the parties has to win the riding they run in. Notice that the only people who get to directly elect the leader of ANY political party in an election is those in the riding the leader runs in.

Following an election, the GG asks the leader of the party with the most seats to form the government. That government can only govern as long as they enjoy the confidence of the house. That means that as long as the majority of MPs are unwilling to vote against the government, it stays in power.

If the government falls, the GG has the choice between asking the leader of the Official Opposition to form a new government or to call an election. Generally the GG will not choose to as the Opposition to form the government unless it has the likelihood of remaining in power for at least a year or it has been just a short time since another election.

If you think I’m talking through my hat here, you may want to have a look at this piece in the Toronto Star today and take note of the number of academics who have supported the paper’s piece.

Harper and his band of bullies deliberately beat hell out of the truth to try to get Canadians up in arms at the proposed coalition by calling it a power grab and undemocratic. Hey boys… it is as democratic as it gets in Canada. I think what is even more troubling is that there is not a one among the Conservatives with the stones to stand up and oppose this blatant hoodwinking of the electorate.

If Harper and his arrogance hasn’t yet learned that he needs to play well with others, especially the Opposition, he might just find himself looking down the nose of either a coalition in power or an election where the people are starting to wake up to his deceits. We’ll start to learn that next week. Stay tuned.

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