Mr Harper Sort Of Right

It is kind of bizarre to have a potential coalition member that believes that national parks are a federalist plot. But, it isn't as bizarre as a government that believes its own census is a communist plot.

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It's Not A Risk...

It's a promise:

The first four days of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Arctic tour were all about claiming Canada's right to the great white north.

But the last night of his Arctic odyssey was about painting Canada in Tory blue.

Harper addressed a crowd of party faithful jammed into the Whitehorse Inn.

He trumpeted the Conservative's achievements in the economy but warned that his party needed a stable mandate when the next election comes.

The alternative, Harper said, is a coalition of the Liberals, Bloc and NDP and the risk that the work of the last four years would be undone.

We can only hope that a coalition would undo the damage that Harper and his psychopathic band of lunatics has done to this country. I can't wait, myself. The only thing standing in the way of this glorious possibility, is the leader of the Liberal Party.

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Anti-Prorogation Is Big

Well at least bigger than PEI. The Facebook page is just shy of 150K (and growing) today and PEI's population is about 143K.

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Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em

What Douglas Bell said. Dippers and Liberals, I hope you are using your time out of parliament wisely.

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Quote Of The Day

Andrew Coyne:

I recognize that Parliament always retains the ultimate sanction of voting no confidence in the government — or at least, on those days that the government will allow it to do so, or deigns to bring forward legislation, or recognizes confidence votes when they occur (see Paul Martin, above). But this is a very blunt instrument. It shouldn’t have to take a vote of non-confidence to get the government to obey basic norms of accountability.

Sadly, Mr. Harper has left the opposition with one option only and that is a vote of confidence. It is the stick with which he and his cronies whack the opposition, even as they move to circumvent the will of Parliament. The only way this will stop is for the opposition to unite to call Mr. Harper's bluff and defeat him. I hope when the time comes, Mr. Coyne does not fall for the "another useless election" meme, we all know is coming from the Conservative attack machine. Defending the constitution from the likes of Stephen Harper is a good hill on which to die.

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The Challenge

Andrew Potter writes:

In a recent Coyne column, Derek Lee appeared to draw a line in the sand, saying that Parliament would not allow itself to be dissolved. Coyne obviously concurs. Is that the Liberal plan, or was Lee just freelancing? Is the opposition serious about Harper being a despot? We have a way of dealing with despots in this country, it’s called a vote of non-confidence. Happily, there’s a speech from the throne coming up not two months from now.

I am not sure how serious Mr. Potter is in issuing this challenge, but it is one the opposition parties, particularly the Liberals and NDP should seriously consider. Harper is punking you and he doubts you have the stones to call him on his challenge to the authority of parliament. Your only recourse is a vote of non-confidence. You have two months to work out the details of a new coalition between you, I suggest you use the time wisely, and very, very quietly.

I suggest you start by reading Chantel Hebert's column from a little while back. It outlines a solution to a coalition that I could accept. I think you should agree, for the good of the country that the NDP runs candidates west of the lakehead, the Liberals in Ontario and Quebec and the NDP runs in Nova Scotia and Liberals in the other Maritime provinces and Newfoundland. Incumbents would run unopposed in their riding regardless of the region. I would also propose that both parties agree that this will be the last FPTP election and if elected as a coalition, would introduce legislation to change the electoral system to a proportional system.

There should be no question that this be done very discretely, as you all know what the Conservative attack machine would do if they caught even a whiff of this. However, the country and the viability of our democracy are at stake here. You must seize this time and use it for the good of Canada. We must get rid of this odious regime.

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What Is This Parliamentary Democracy Of Which You Speak

Brian Topp from yesterday:

The Prime Minister’s very first line captured the whole Conservative case: “Mr. Speaker, the highest principle of Canadian democracy is that if one wants to be prime minister one gets one’s mandate from the Canadian people and not from Quebec separatists.”

That, of course, is not true. The highest principle of Canadian democracy is that Parliament gets its mandate from the Canadian people, and then selects a ministry from among its ranks to do its bidding. But truth had nothing to do with what happened next.

I don't live in the country Topp describes. Objectively, what he says is true, but the Conservatives (who decry everything post-modern) have adopted subjective truth with both hands. In their opinion, Canadians directly elect the Prime Minister. That this is not so and never has been, in the whole of our constitutional history means nothing. They "believe it is so" and so it is. As Mr. Flanagan so aptly put it (in another context), "It doesn't have to be true. It just has to be plausible."

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Plan B

If Layton is really serious about getting things done, he should be on the phone to Gilles Duceppe, tonight. The two of them should get together and present a common set of progressive demands and play the Liberals off against the Tories. They should stop letting Harper and Iggy set the agenda. The Bloc and the NDP have the power of life and death, they should get together and do some good for the country. Bring the coalition agenda into being another way.

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Panic Grips The Official Opposition

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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What's Wrong With This Picture?

We have a government that is pleading with the press (successfully, I might add) to scream from the rooftops, that they have seen the light and will no longer play games -- at the same time they are systematically leaking the budget, in a effort to manipulate public opinion ahead of the budget. Is anyone but the stenographers in the MSM really fooled by this?

Partial Update:At least Paul Wells isn't fooled. I suspect the rest of the MSM isn't really fooled either. They just have their own reasons for playing fools.

Later Update:While I have often been critical of James Laxer's fondness for the Liberals, I must agree with him here.

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It's On, By The Look Of It

With all of the leaks coming out about the budget, culminating with the PM signaling the inclusion of permanent tax cuts (to permanently cripple the government and force cuts in services down the line), it appears that Harper has come to some conclusions. He may think Iggy is not serious in his opposition to permanent tax cuts. Or, Harper may think that even if Iggy is serious, he is too chicken to bring him down over tax cuts. Or, Harper, given his paranoid nature, may be convinced that the "conspiracy" to get him is unstoppable so he might as well start the election campaign now. Here's hoping that Iggy is serious and does have backbone and that the Governor General tells Harper to go seek treatment and gives the job to someone a little less crazy, by this time next week.

Update: The punditocracy still insists that Iggy will back down however, on the theory that no one will notice his alliance with Harper and that he can pick a hapless Harper off later (or as I like to call it, the Dion Gambit). If next week goes down the way our MSM overlords say it will, expect many trees to die, as the MSM sings the praises of a "wise" Iggy (though not as many trees as in the past). Harper, on the other hand, will know know the score and will treat Iggy with the same care and love that he showed the last Liberal leader who bent over for him.

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Sadly, No

Don Martin thinks Canadians are brain dead. How else to explain this bit of brilliance from yesterday:

All the Liberals need to do is nitpick at the budget's flaws, ridicule the squandering of surpluses their party generated starting in 1998 and swallow their pride to abstain from voting for or against a free-spending budget that could noose the Harper government.

So, the Liberals can bitch about the budget and then let it pass by abstaining? That worked so well for Dion that I can't believe the Liberals actually dumped the guy. The bottom line is this, despite cover fire from CanWest, the Liberals have two choices. They can support the government and own the budget, whether that support comes from abstaining or voting in favor; or they can vote against the budget and take their chances with the GG. Canadians won't be fooled into thinking the Liberals are "really" opposing the government, when they are voting with it. That kind of logic only works on CanWest columnists and Stephane Dion.

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That Sounds About Right

Today.

Mulcair suggested the Conservatives are laying a trap and will spike the budget with enough concessions to opposition demands to secure survival beyond the point where the Governor General would call on a Liberal-NDP coalition to form the government.

"They are simply trying to get themselves beyond the date after which the Governor General rather than giving the other parties a chance to govern, would (agree) to an election," he said.

Once the window is closed, expect the games of wrong foot the Liberals into an election, to start up once again. First however, Harper needs to make the Liberals into the co-owners of the recession.

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Of Opportunity Cost

Douglas Bell nails it in the Globe:

Hereabouts, and for all that, the Liberals need to ask themselves whether there's an opportunity cost in propping up a Conservative party that's forced to hold its ideological nose in order to pursue an agenda of economic reform. On Saturday, the Globe reported on the Conservatives' internal tensions:

It's a tough sell. The former Reform Party activists and veterans of Mike Harris's conservative revolution in Ontario that make up the government's caucus believe deeply that deficits are nothing but trouble, and even now, amid the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, they question the wisdom of spending more money than the government brings in.

"Party members will not like this," said Monte Solberg, a minister in Mr. Harper's cabinet who quit politics ahead of last year's election. "Reformers, my heritage, do not like this.”

In short, while the dictates of political expediency ensure the Tories will present a budget in line with the current spirit of reform. can they be trusted to administer it without equivocation?

The answer to that last question is definitely no. The Tories will present a beautiful budget (think Stalin's 1936 Constitution), full of beautiful promises and wads of cash, never to be seen or heard from again (until the next election when they will be reannounced).

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Dear Liberals

Thanks for expediting the leadership. Now all I ask is that your leader take a clear stand on the future of the coalition (and letting Jim Karygiannis speak to the media does not count). Thanks.

Update: I am not suggesting that Iggy have a news conference (In fact that would be a stupid strategy). However, I think Layton has a right to know how the Liberals are going to jump. After all, how Iggy handles his relationships with the other leaders may determine his own fate in a possible minority situation of his own.

Bonus Food For Thought Update: The fact that Andrew Potter is writing endless screeds promoting the idea that the coalition would destroy the Liberal party, should tell the Liberals that a coalition might be the way to go.

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