Here is what is going to happen now 2
My first prediction has come true and now we’ll have to see if the second one does too.
It is fair to predict the only way the Prime Minister will survive an eventual confidence motion in January on the budget is if it includes the significant stimulus package the Coalition has requested/proposed.
What appeasement will the Prime Minister accomplish in a month an a half that he could not have accomplished put putting his nose to the grindstone now and worked out before Monday?
He didn’t even try. He asked to prorogue Parliament today (Thursday) instead of getting his hands dirty and working his ass off trying to reach a deal until Sunday – when, if he couldn’t reach an agreement with opposition parties, he could have gone down this same road and asked to prorogue the House.
Regardless of who you or I voted for in the last election this just looks like pure laziness on behalf of the Prime Minister.
Here is what is going to happen now
Here’s the deal. Or at least my best guess at this point. (Isn’t constitutional guessing fun?!)
The Prime Minister will ask for a prorogation of Parliament tomorrow morning and the Governor General (to my dismay) will agree. She’ll agree because this is her best option – nobody wants the GG to disagree with a democratically elected Prime Minister.
They will prorogue for one week which will take us to the Holiday break, which is set to begin on December 13. I guess that’s not so bad; one week?
We’ll return on January 26 to… exactly the same situation we face now. But with cooler heads. But everyone will be just as angry. The budget will be presented on January 27 and it will be a confidence motion.
Why prorogue again?
On ensuring an unelected official does not decide the fate of our country
Also available on the Calgary Herald’s Q.
The Governor General is a figurehead position, it has been for many years. It is unfair to ask an unelected official to decide the fate of our country.
Therefore there is only one option Michaelle Jean has before her: do whatever the Prime Minister asks of her. Assuming the PM enjoys the confidence of the House, he represents the will of 308 elected officials. This is the precedent and is exceedingly fair.
However it is also the reason Stephen Harper cannot ask her to prorogue Parliament.
To ask her to do so would be to ask an unelected official to decide the fate of our country. To do this would be near political suicide. It would be considered by many, myself included, as cowardly and undemocratic. The House of Commons is the governing body and they alone should be the ones to decide the future of Canada. Its members are our representatives. This is what we sent them to Ottawa to do.
In my eyes this leaves Stephen Harper with only three options. He can only present one to the Governor General, and she should agree to whichever one he proposes regardless of her own personal opinion.
- Work with the opposition MPs to avoid defeat on Monday’s non-confidence motion – This is obviously my favourite option as it means Parliament returns to civility and we can get back to the job of governing and fixing the current economy situation we are in. It is however the hardest option of the three to undertake because it requires patience and quick work.
If they go this route the Conservatives only have until Monday to strike a deal on the economy with the Liberals or the NDP. Or the Bloq. All you need is the support of one of those parties and we can get back to business as usual. Harper has already shown he is willing to back down on the majority of items proposed in the offending Fiscal Update – the Coalition should show they are willing to do the same. It is time to make at least one more concession to one other party. This is democracy in action. After Monday’s vote, you will have officially failed or succeeded at being a minority government. And you would only have two options left to choose from if you prove to be a failure.
Proroguing is an extension of this option but one that you have asked an unelected official to grant you extra time to undertake the task. Instead, go ask an opposition leader and get more time democratically by gaining the confidence of the House of Commons, and Canadians.
- Call an election – There is no shame in this if you can’t work with other parties. Let Canadians decide if we agree with you or the opposition. If we agree with you then you will probably get a majority. If not, you’ll become the opposition and the party we think can do the best job governing will be given a chance. Or you may be given a message that we don’t trust anyone fully and we are happy with a minority government so quit your bitchin’ and get back to work.
Of course one could argue that this is what we just did on Oct. 14, but sometimes people need to be told twice.
If you don’t like the option of facing the electorate once more that leaves you with only one last option.
- Step aside and let the Coalition give it a try – If you think the first option is going to hurt the Tories pride this one will really sting. But it isn’t such a bad option. They will have a minority and with the support of the Bloq you could bring them down anytime you like. When the Conservatives of course will be in a much better position to win an election with a majority.
The morale of the story is there are still options available to the Government that don’t result in an unelected official deciding the fate of our country. We should expect the rest of the House of Commons to respect any decision the Prime Minister makes so we can avoid that; just as we would expect him to obey the will of the House if they decide this Parliament will not continue.
Of course there is that fourth looming option: prorogue. Suspending Parliament only to avoid a confidence motion is something I think most Canadians can agree is ridiculous for the reason I outlined above, hence why I’ve ruled it out altogether. But prevailing thought is this is what the Prime Minister will announce he is going to ask the Governor General to do. If he really does go down this road, I’d like to think she kicks him out of her office and says, “Get back to work and stop running away from your problems.” Although as an unelected official I don’t think she can do much more than agree to whatever he asks.
So if a suspension is what he asks for, and what he gets, the Prime Minister certainly will have lost my confidence forever for putting the future of our country in the hands of someone other than Parliament.
"I would certainly not like to find myself governing this economy today."
There’s a clip from last night’s This Hour has 22 Minutes episode that caught my eye. It shows the PM misspeaking a little in the House. He was having difficulty remembering who he was talking to. It made me laugh because apparently he doesn’t even know who is or wants to be the Prime Minister any longer!
I’m joking of course, but the second half of the sentence he delivered does give me pause and caused me some confusion:
“I can just tell you Mr. Prime Minister I will… or Mr. President… I would… I can just tell you I just tell you Mr. Speaker I would certainly not like to find myself governing this economy today.”
I don’t think Liberals, NDP or Bloc would like to find you governing this economy today either. That’s kind of what has us in this whole mess. If you agree, you’re welcome to step aside and we can just avoid the whole hullabaloo that is coming…
(I couldn’t find a direct link to the video – stupid Flash players – but here is how to find it: click here, then on the right hand side – under Latest – find the clip called “From the Newsdesk”. Currently it is on the second page. The comment is found at 2:10 into the clip.)
Bastards and Boneheads
Also available on the Calgary Herald’s Q.
The title of this post gets its name from Will Ferguson’s entertaining book of the same name. In the book he travels through history applying the label “bastard” or “bonehead” to each Canadian Prime Minister. If memory serves me correct, each PM who lead a minority government received the title of “bonehead”. Inevitably they did something stupid to lose power there-by granting them the moniker for eternity. (Except maybe Pearson who led a minority seemingly forever.)
Stephen Harper has led a minority government for a couple of years now and I’m pretty confident up until this past week he easily would have fallen into the “bastard” category. Lot’s of people hate him, but there’s no arguing with the results. And just two months ago Canadians, as a whole, re-upped his contract.
But now he’s gone down that other road and fallen squarely into “bonehead” territory. Call it what you will – ‘arrogant’ appears to be most people’s fave – but Harper’s political manoeuvring, so successful in the past, has caught up with him as he went back to that trough one two many times. Instead of just focusing on governing and the “global financial crisis”, he decided to take one quick swipe at the opposition parties and attempt to kill them off under the auspice of saving Canadian taxpayers some money. (Money that would stay in the government coffers and not actually save Canadian taxpayers some money, mind you.)
When you dance with the devil you get burned.
You can slam the opposition parties’ policies, you can spend millions discrediting their leaders, but if you threaten to kill them you had to expect they’d fight back. And fight they are.
And in a minority parliament you need their support to survive – you can’t pick fights. Yup, that makes Harper a “bonehead”.
I’m not impressed with how anyone in this situation is handling themselves. Harper could have done the right thing in the first place and not brought this upon himself. The opposition parties could have decided the party they wanted to work with was across the house from them (the government). But for anyone on either side of the political spectrum to consider this situation “undemocratic” is ridiculous. We have a parliamentary system of government, this kind of “power play” is absolutely allowed – it is intended to make government more accountable. And it has worked. Harper has backed down on just about everything everyone found incredulous in his economic update.
Now it is the coalition’s turn to back down and get back to governing. Otherwise we’ll just have another “bonehead” running things.
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