Sunday

When it fell nobody was surprised anymore

The contempt of parliament motion passed the house fell, and the Prime Minister was off to see the Governor General on the weekend. It took until Friday, rather than the Monday for the opposition to have control of the agenda. But so it was. With that we are on our way to Election 41.

The issue does indeed seem an undeniable case of contempt for parliament, as per the motion. When a government in power refuses to deliver to parliament fundamental documents that clarify its spending, to back up its budgeted numbers for major billion dollar purchase plans, it does in fact seem contemptuous of the very foundation of our government system.

Its sad that so many contemptuous actions of that government had been allowed to pile up. Rules broken right and left without repercussions have left me flabbergasted.

Immediately the PM also began a diatribe that fits right in with his approach to communications - flood the conversation with some irrelevant story to take over the discussion. With the word coalition appearing several times per sentence, the media (and apparently here I go too) immediately chatted up the word as well.

All his language is accusatory, threatening, and scare-mongering. That's no way to lead a country.

The gist of the suggestion was that when Stephen Harper gets a minority, it's a sad affront to Canadians but he'll slog it out and pursue his mandate. If the Liberals should get a minority government, then it is immediately classifiable as a horrific coalition and illegitimate.

The opposition parties all scurried around to deny a coalition in the works, but it took them a while to start focussing on how a) Harper made an concerted effort to put together a coalition with the Bloc and the NDP to bring down the Martin Liberal government, and b) the government is in contempt of parliament and THAT is the illegitimate thing and furthermore c) coalitions are perfectly legal and some might say productive ways to form governments. Ask, oh I don't know, pretty much ANY government in Europe - particular the current Conservative government running the UK just now.

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