Canada Is Often Considered Boring But…
It seems we have our very own constitutional crisis and it’s on a full boil. The condensed version is that the minority Conservative government doesn’t want a Parliamentary vote on a recent economic statement because it’s likely to lose and thus will have to resign. The Liberal and New Democratic parties have agreed to form a coalition with the support of the Quebec separatist BQ party. The Conservatives would obviously rather hold another election but the opposition parties may be asked to govern by the Governor General if they can demonstrate that they enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons. Prime Minister Harper will be meeting with the GG on Friday in an attempt to persuade her to reject the coalition’s proposal.
I’m of two minds on the issue. On the one hand, Mr. Harper is a bully who roused the opposition’s ire with some ill considered tactics and I’d like nothing better than to see him and his party given the boot. OTOH, we just had an election two months ago, the opposition Liberal party is in disarray, we’re facing the same economic downturn that every other nation is facing and I think that this is the time for the parties to work together rather than slug it out. I was hoping that calmer and saner heads would prevail eventually but Mr. Harper doesn’t appear interested in conciliation if his recent remarks are to be believed.
It should make for an interesting weekend if nothing else.
