Tag: Parliament

… And Parliament goes on vacation

Well, it’s disappointing. Truly, the GG’s precedents for this were thin on the ground, so this decision was as valid as the other, but it’s still disappointing. It amounts to a reprieve for the Conservatives. Now they can wander off and cobble together a budget that takes all the best ideas from the coalition and present it and have the other parties look silly for voting against it.

Of course, it’s good if this actually reins the Conservatives in. But it’s unfortunate that it means we’ll likely continue to have a Prime Minister whose character is so clearly deficient, so far from what the country needs at this time.

And also, can we afford to have no federal action for two full months? Not exactly the best time for them to be off on vacation on our dime.

What’s been good

Well, it’s certainly engaging many Canadians in a way I’ve rarely seen before. Thousands of comments on news articles, pages full of letters to the editor… There’s very far from being a consensus of opinion on this. And more thoughtful commentary than I would have expected.

Opinions I have little patience with

“It’s a coup, it’s undemocratic, it’s a power grab, we didn’t vote for a coalition…”

Realizing my impatience with it will not make this opinion go away (especially with the Conservatives running ads on this theme), we elected a Parliament. The way we always do. We do not elect Prime Ministers. The elected members of Parliament can organize themselves in whatever combination they wish to form effective government. Coalitions, while rare in Canada, are perfect valid and completely in line with our democratic system.

“We need to have another election first.”

I actually can’t believe some people are of this opinion. Shall we just convert every vote in the House to an election then? For heaven’s sake! We just had a freakin’ election. We can’t afford the time, expense, and sheer aggravation only to likely end up with pretty much the same thing.

These are the people we elected. Let them find a way to govern for a little while, one way or another.

Opinions I’m more sympathetic toward

“I don’t want Dion as Prime Minister”

Yeah. Much as we don’t literally vote for Prime Ministers, I still think Canadians clearly expressed that they didn’t want Mr. Dion to be P-M. Hence his resignation from the leadership post the next day. Realizing they didn’t have a lot of time, I still wish the Liberals had gone with another interim leader for this coalition. (I wish Mr. Dion had recognized that could be in the best interest of the country as well.)

And regardless of what happens next, the Liberals seriously need to think about electing a new leader sooner than May. That’s too far away. Frankly—and even though I don’t particularly like Ignatief—I still think any of the three Liberal contenders would be a better bet than anything else on offer from the other parties (Duceppe’s separatism and May’s lack of a seat in the House rather hobbling these otherwise decent options).

And speaking of Duceppe…

“I don’t like that the coalition includes separatists”

The Bloc are annoying fact of Parliamentary life, but the math says the only way to bring the Conservatives down is to get Bloc support. And if it weren’t for the Bloc, the Conservatives would have their majority, and the other parties would have lost their financial capacity to fight them in future elections.

So while sympathetic with that point, me, I can live with them being involved. (Just like Stephen Harper could back when he was in opposition.) They wouldn’t actually sit in government; they’d just agree not to bring it down for 18 months. Seems an acceptable compromise.

What not to lose sight of

This crisis is Stephen Harper’s doing. Period. He has not taken responsibility for that, and he has not shown one iota of remorse for it.

So what do you think of your coalition now?

Now that the Conservatives have blinked, it’s more complicated.

They’ve dropped the funding cut to political parties. And also the ban on the right to strike. And, they pledge to bring forward a budget, with stimulus package, earlier, in January.

And yet the coalition agreement was signed, with Dion as Prime Minister, members of the NDP in cabinet, and the Bloc agreeing to support it for at least a year.

Politically, I don’t know how wise this is. The unpopular leader, the deal with separatists, leaving the party with the single most seats out in the cold—it’s just going to make a lot of people really angry.

On the other hand… It really is cooperation, isn’t it? And isn’t that exactly what a lot of people say they want? Three parties agreeing to work together for the good of Canada. Of course, their motives are nowhere near pure. But, it’s still a little refreshing.

And, I kind of like some the policy statements I’ve heard from the coalition side so far. Dropping the NDP demand to cancel corporate tax cuts (thank goodness). A stimulus package sooner. A blue chip economic advisory committee. Possibly restoring arts funding. Elizabeth May, Senator.

On the other hand (I clearly need more hands), it’s really hard to have great confidence in this group. The Liberals are still in a fair amount of disarray, and the NDP campaigned on a completely unrealistic platform. One hopes the NDP would learn from actually governing, but Canada isn’t in the best position right now for them to practice on. And Dion, despite some definite virtues, has not exactly shown himself to be a great leader.

I guess there isn’t any way for us to get Barack Obama as leader without actually joining the US? No? Well, OK then…

In this article I just found [link no longer valid!], Andrew Steele lays out Harper’s options.

  1. Preemptively Remove Michaëlle Jean.
    To which I say, wow, he can do that? I don’t like that one. It’s not right. And I like Ms. Jean.
  2. Reschedule the Vote again.
    How long a delay would be long enough? Eventually, someone has to govern…
  3. Appoint Opposition MPs to the Senate.
    This option is too boring to even contemplate.
  4. Caretaker Prime Minister.
    This apparently means admitting defeat, to some extent, and seeking to find a coalition partner. He would just be a “caretaker” Prime Minister in the meantime, with more limited powers. Interesting. Would he actually do this?
  5. Prorogue
    i.e. Cancel this session of Parliament and start again. This is the one he wants, but which admittedly limited precedent suggests the G-G shouldn’t grant.
  6. Apologize, fire Flaherty, and reach across the aisle.
    Is it a big enough gesture? And would he do this?
  7. Request an election.
    No! Not another damn election! No!
  8. Convince Opposition MPs to support the government.
    They’d need 12 turncoats.
  9. Seduce the Bloc into supporting the government.
    They’re already running anti-Bloc, so doubtful this is still a viable option.
  10. Step down as Conservative leader.
    Which is also what the Globe Editorial today recommends, and would, I think be a big enough gesture to appease the opposition (at least the Liberal party). But would he do that?

“May you live in interesting times.” Really is a curse, eh?