Harper's Bizarre or How a Scheming Politician Puts the Rogue in Prorogue

Stephen Harper came ominously close to winning a majority in the last October's federal election and he has just demonstrated why Canadians have never, and must never, give him one. He simply cannot be trusted to put his extreme right-wing ideals on the back burner and govern the country fair-mindedly.

Harper's scheming has forced a Parliamentary showdown and precipitated a constitutional crossroads the like of which Ottawa has never seen. Calculating that the measures in his "economic update" would crush the opposition, Harper instead faced a united front which threatened to take his minority government down.

Political observers have been comparing Harper's misreading of the opposition's resolve to Joe Clark's blunder of 1979 which resulted in him being voted out of office. Now Harper is pulling out all the stops to avoid facing a confidence motion in the House of Commons. First he delayed the vote by over a week, now he asked, and received, permission from the Governor General of Canada to prorogue, or dissolve, Parliament until the end of January.

This is unprecedented for a couple of reasons. The new session of Parliament following the election just barely opened. Also, each time Parliament has been prorogued in the past, the Prime Minister has had the confidence of the House. Harper does not.

Still, a Governor General almost never denies a request from the Prime Minister. So what happens now? Harper will continue to concoct new schemes. A Stephen Harper who does not scheme is like a cat who doesn't scratch or a newborn baby who doesn't cry. Look for the Conservatives to go on and on about how a coalition government is unconstitutional (even though it's fine when they propose it) and to play Quebec separatist fear-mongering to the hilt.

Meanwhile, the thick-headed Liberal party: oh will they ever learn? The voters massively rejected Stephane Dion and made it clear they don't want him as Prime Minister. Yet they propose Dion as leader of a coalition government? Don't they want the idea of a coalition to be even a tad acceptable to Canadians?

I believe with every fibre of my being that Stephen Harper and his band of right-wing extremists have got to go. So if the coalition holds together, it must choose someone else to lead. To do otherwise would be a slap in the face to the voting public.