Prorogued

What do you mean prorogue is not what happens when perogies go bad? :-) Ok bad joke but whatever!

This week a coalition of heroes approached the Haitian seeing assistance in getting rid of their enemy, the one with the greatest power. Apparently the Haitian couldnt help.

Sounds like a scene from the show Heroes right? Alas it was a scene from Canadian politics as it played out this week with Dion, Duceppe and Layton playing the coalition, Governor General Michaëlle Jean playing the Haitian (she is Haitian born after all right) and PM Harper playing the villain. Right now all we need is a solar eclipse and my analogy is complete.

In theory a coalition could work. If aliens from outer space landed and were running roughshod over the country perhaps a Liberal, a socialist and a separatist could put their differences aside and work together to defeat the alien overlords. A global economic crisis, however, is probably not enough for these three wildly divergent visions of Canada to gel.

That quote is from Rick Mercer. You can find his take on the situation here. Quite a good read.

Anyway in response to our current political crisis which I mentioned in my previous post yesterday the Governor General acting on the wishes of the current PM has prorogued parliament until the end of January. What that proroguing term mean, and I used to think it meant to be in favor of scoundrels although come to think of it you could still interpret it as such, is that parliament has been suspended. He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day I guess.

Doors lock, business aborted, wheel and come again if you please!

Now I'll be honest. At first when I heard that the Governor General was following the PM's suggestion I was vex. What kind of foolishness this woman doing I thought. But a few hours later I changed my mind. I think Madame Jean acted correctly and in the best interests of the Canadian people on this one.

Mind you it could and probably will still end badly but for now she basically saying cool your heels and lets see if we can settle this thing amicably or at least like sensible people with the welfare of the Canadian citizens at heart. So for that I commend her.

The problem is for all her good intentions she has probably just prolonged the inevitable; that being Canadians heading back to the polls early next year.

Lets examine the situation. As Mercer suggested there was no way a political coalition of those three parties survives long term, even short term its sketchy cause I'm sure its all smiles now but wait until Duceppe and Layton start flexing their muscles.

The other issue with the Liberal-NDP Bloc supported coalition is leadership and this is one of the reasons I think Jean did the right thing but we are headed back to elections. Stephane Dion by default is the leader of that coalition but Canadians have overwhelmingly rejected him as a leader. To even have him spend two days in the PM's chair is just ridiculous and a slap in the face to voters cause clearly thats not what they wanted. So a Dion led coalition is really not favorable.

And really he's not a strong leader. A coalition needs a strong leader to keep the divergent worldviews and minsets in check. You really think the PQ and NDP respect Dion? Nuh I doubt that.

And what was with that cheesy video they did in response to Harper's statement. As one news anchor quipped it looks like they shot it on a cellphone. Seriously if you want to bring your point of view to the people and cant find a proper camera to make a short speech telling us why you should be our next government then that really isnt a vote of confidence in your skills as leaders, managers or doers. It just says you're not ready yet. Silly silly silly on their part!

Then we come to the encumbant PM Harper. He started it all. Just couldnt play nice with his pals on the Hill. He is still PM but lets take a look at who was propping up his minority government in the face of opposition from the LIberals and NDP. Oh wait it was the Parti Quebecois who he just completely insulted over and over in his attempts to stop this coalition from happening. Does he think they'll support him now whe he's got crucial bills to pass? Nope so that means we'll have an ineffective minority goverment and nothing will get done. Just wonderful.

I could go on about the outcomes of any possible elections but all in all the verdict is that we here in Canada are faced with a political connundrum which we cannot really afford to have at this time and Canada could be poorly led for the forseeable future.

So much for first world status but then again I never drank the koolaid on that one.