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called back into emergency session by the executive (proceeding, as often as not
perhaps, to make a bad situation worse, but I digress).
When Canada faces a crisis, the legislature is
Prorogued
1. To discontinue a session of (a parliament, for example).
2. To postpone; defer.
Yes, Canada, in its wisdom, has told Parliament to go away,
vamoose, get lost, and otherwise stay out of the business of
governing until January 26th.
In the US, we have a situation where the President is impotent,
the Congress is flailing, and the economy is plunging like
a lead balloon wrapped around neutronium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutroniu
In Canada, we have a situation where the Prime Minister is an
asshole, the Parliament is impotent, and the economy is about
to be absorbed into a giant sinkhole caused by its neighbor.
Comments
I presume there's something I don't understand, since it sounds so absurd to me.
to suspend Parliament.
Her other options were to deny his request and then, if
Parliament indeed voted against the government on Monday,
to ask the newly-formed coalition to form a government, or
to dissolve Parliament and call new elections.
Since Canada just held elections two months or so ago, it was
a plausible (and the only) option to prevent what some would
have viewed as chaos (and others would have viewed as the
parliamentary system acting as it was designed to).
Still, the idea of being able to tell the legislature to go
take a FF is pretty weird.
I've been listening to CBC a lot, and got to hear some of his cabinet
insult the Quebec electorate pretty directly.
The people calling it "chaos" seem to be mostly Tories.
I only just have an inkling about why Jean made that decision.
Who would've thought......
There are four parties holding seats - the party with the most seats forms the government. The Tories hold a large minority such that they will succeed in anything unless all three of the Liberals (socialist), NDP (pseudo-communist), and Bloc Quebecois (seperatists) gang up on them. Harper figured he had carte blanche and immediately made two moves that should have waited for a majority government - he took away funding from the opposition parties and he banned certain unions from striking.
That drove the opposition together for their mutual protection. Forcing another election would almost certainly result in a conservative majority, so they made the only play available to them - coalition. Harper has tried to back-pedal, but now they've smelled blood in the water and realize that this good for them at the expense of the country. The NDP sees a chance to have 1/3 of the cabinet posts - seeing as they've never had a cabinet post, this is big for them - especially if they can make Jack Layton into Finance Minister. The Bloc Quebecois doesn't concern itself with federal issues and is willing to side with the coalition in exchange for benefits to Quebec (which many speculate will lead to secession). The Liberals see a way to grab power. Since their massive disgrace for decades of systemic corruption things have been looking dismal for the party and since Harper has been doing such a good job with Canada's finances, they have no way of beating him fair and square. In bad times, Canadians vote more conservatively.
You'd be hard pressed to find any reasonable person who believes that a regime change under these circumstances will benefit the country, but the move is technically legal. It's the Governor General's prerogative to pause things for a little while and see if they shake out a little better.
My hope is that the Tories can bring the Block onside by offering them money - even if it's a lot of money. That would do the least long term damage to the country. Allowing a communist finance minister would be grave indeed.