Harper Gets His Cake and Attempts to Eat It Too
Harper gets his cake in the form of a prorogued parliament and now he is attempting to stuff that cake down his gullet before it gets taken away!
Is it just me but wasn’t Senate reform one of his campaign promises- to do away with the patronage appointments that are generally seen as a means to put like minded folk in the upper house to ease the passing of legislation. In other words, it is about power, nothing more nothing less.
Shocking, non?
I am not arguing whether he does or does not have the right to appoint the senators, my argument is that it flies in the face of something he was so seemingly passionate about- primarily as a means to separate himself from the “entitled” Liberals who had gotten drunk with the power they had amassed during the Chretien years. Harper was the straight shooter that would change the way politics worked in Ottawa. He played that card very well to get the Conservative Party the first minority government.
Who is drunk on the power now?
Or are these the last desperate measures of a man who knows his days are numbered and is desperately clinging to the hope that a few (18) well-appointed individuals beholding to him will grease the wheels of commerce in the future?
Don’t be naïve. This is the way the world works- maybe not to the extreme that we are seeing with the Governor of Illinois but let’s face reality. Did you really believe that the Sponsorship Scandal was the first time ever that there was or will be a sniff of impropriety in politics? People certainly made it out to be this outrageous affront to Canada and Canadians but when you look at the details, more money was spent on the investigation into the scandal than the scandal itself- not to say that what happened was right but perspective is sorely lacking.
The timing is very telling…Parliament is in do-over mode and unfortunately the Governor General failed to put any restrictions on the Prime Minister- though I must admit I haven’t had the opportunity to look into whether this could have even been an option. I had a very interesting conversation with a left-leaning and much more learned friend and we both agreed that while the GG’s hands were essentially tied and that she probably did not make the wrong decision (it pains me to write that), our beef was that the decision came down before her meetings with Dion and Layton- which were scheduled to take place later that afternoon.
The very least she could have done was give the other two leaders the respect they deserved by speaking to them first but more importantly, to make Harper stew a little longer. Making him sweat it out a little might (and that is a big might) have deflated his big fat head ego a bit and done both him and Canada a little good in the process.
Well, so much for missed opportunities.
Well, so much for promises.
What am I thinking? Idealism momentarily caused swelling of the brain and the result was temporary insanity.
Why should I expecting a politician to keep their promises- especially one that is not longer expedient?
AngryEgg 
How long has parliament been suspended over in Canada then? I haven’t really checked this story out properly, but being from Britain, I assumed the Canadian system was pretty much the same as we have here. PM’s can ‘dissolve’ parliament here, but they usually do that when they want to call a vote of no confidence or a general election.
Parliament was prorogued December 4th and will not return until January 26th. I am afraid I cannot speak to any similarities or differences in comparison with the British system but parliament hasn’t technically been dissolved. If it had been dissolved, we would have had to go to another election- and I don’t think this country could take another one so soon after the last election (which unfortunately, put us right back in the same sort of stalemate under which we have been operating the last few years).
If the session hadn’t been prorogued by the Governor General (the Queen’s representative in Canada), the vote that would have taken place would likely (99%) have resulted in a vote of non-confidence and either a general election would have been called (unlikely) or the coalition government that had been so quickly cobbled together would have been given a shot at governing. The act of proroguing was essentially a time-out, wiping out the first six weeks of the new government to give the Conservative Party the opportunity to work within the minority government structure (ideally one of cooperation and negotiation).
There just doesn’t seem to be an end to the fun and games in Canadian politics right now.