You know what's funny

You know what's funny?
One of the things Canadians have now found out about is that for at least the last nine years, the Alliance and the Conservatives and the Liberals have been happily making deals with Jack Layton and Giles Duceppe.
Its like the temperance ladies sneaking the occasional shot of rum -- sorta undermines all this demonizing of the "socialists" and the "separatists", doesn't it?
Its not funny ha ha, I guess, but at least its funny oh boy.

Concern trolls come out to play

Thank you so much Andrew Coyne and Robert Silver for letting us all know how pristine your standards are for the leadership of the Liberal party.
Apparently the Liberals now MUST pick as their next leader ONLY someone who not only does not support the coalition this week, but also did not support it last week and who at that time betrayed his fellow Liberals and the whole coalition initiative by announcing this loudly and proudly at the time.
And that person would be . . . (crickets) . . .
The only people who did not support the coalition last week were, um, Harper's Conservatives.
This week, the situation will be completely different, as both these trolls know very well.
UPDATE: The plot sickens.

Canada's Nelson moment

Mr. Sinister and Calgary Grit suggest that when Harper presents his budget at the end of January, the NDP and the Liberals should vote against it and the Bloc should vote for it.
Works for me.

Potemkin supporters

Rick Mercer tells this story in today's Globe and Mail:

During the past week, while the nation wondered if the government would fall, junior Conservative staffers were ordered to be outside 24 Sussex Dr. by 6:15 in the morning. Their job was to stand there in the dark with the temperature well below zero and wait for the PM to appear. Their instructions were to applaud, wave and sing O Canada loudly as the motorcade pulled out of the gates and drove Stephen Harper to work.
Mr. Harper, by all accounts, actually believed that the young people were there of their own accord and represented a groundswell of love and support for his actions. Staffers in the Prime Minister's Office know that he is easier to handle when being applauded and not questioned.

Isn't this just sad? Next he'll be talking to Mackenzie King's mother.

I agree with John Manley

Well, well, will wonders never cease. I actually agree with John Manley -- The first Liberal step: Replace Dion:

Canadians have every right to expect that the politicians they elected so recently would be entirely focused on the issues threatening our economic security and well-being. Instead, they have been subjected to a sordid display of arrogance, hyperbole and incompetence that can only make voters wish a pox on all their houses.
This is too serious a time for games. . . .
[for the Conservatives] to have created a totally avoidable political crisis when the economy was the task at hand was highly irresponsible. This has only become worse in the past week as a government desperate to hold on to power showed itself willing to be reckless on the national unity file. That is one sleeping dog that should be left alone. . . .
The Liberal Party, with its worst result in percentage of vote in its long and proud history, was also given a message on election night. Namely, that since losing power, the party, its leader and its caucus had failed to regain the confidence of the people.. . .
Confronted by a political crisis that was not of his making, Mr. Dion became an obstacle to his party, and to the opposition, in dealing with it . . . in agreeing to the terms of the coalition with the NDP and the Bloc, Mr. Dion bound his successor to a controversial arrangement without even consulting any of the candidates to succeed him in the process, leaving them no option but to endorse it or break with him as party leader.
The government must be prevented from running roughshod over the opposition at all times, but especially when the voters have denied them a majority. The best way to do that is for the Liberal executive and caucus to choose a new leader immediately . . .
the first task should be to work collaboratively with all other parties to restore the confidence of Canadians in their Parliament.
The government needs to drop the ugly rhetoric that it reverted to so quickly and easily so soon after the election. It's not just about winning confidence votes. The confidence of the House of Commons needs to be earned on a daily basis, by being consultative, trustworthy and respectful. Unfortunately, Mr. Harper has put quite a dollop of poison into the well.

I do see a certain logic in a long-term relationship or merger or marriage or whatever between the Liberals and the NDP. However, we're not there yet. We're not even at the spin-the-bottle stage in this romance.
Right now, the rationale for our coalition is economic urgency -- without the economic crisis, the coalition would not, and likely should not, be able to persuade Canadians that its authority for taking over leadership of the government without another election is legitimate.
This makes it premature, I believe, for Liberals to continue to promote a coalition government takeover until we see whether the January 27 budget turns out to be as inadequate and ideological as the economic statement was.
And its abundantly clear now also that Canadians will not support Stephane Dion as their prime minister under any circumstances, regardless of how badly Harper is bungling the economy.
Whether we hang together or hang separately, Dion must go.

For want of a nail...

So the camera was broken and nobody had 20 minutes to spare to buy a new one, I guess.
And they didn't follow the disk format the networks wanted.
And then they didn't get the disks to the right network studio.
So the words of Dion were lost because they were so poorly delivered. It was beyond slapdash, and it may have cost us a government.

Moving forward

Here are my thoughts.
First, this Liberal-NDP coalition was formed as a specific response to Harper's inadequate, clumsy and insulting economic statement. We wanted to try to save the Canadian economy. With no parliament now anyway, talking about defeating the government to bring in some innovative government programs to save the economy strikes me as a pretty meaningless activity right now.
Second, the electorate, me included, don't really care whether the MPs like each other or not -- we didn't elect people to be nice but to get things done. So talking about how the Conservative government has to be defeated because of the poisonous atmosphere in Parliament also strikes me as meaningless right now.
As a result, I don't think the coalition can be functional again until we see what Harper's budget has to offer at the end of January.
Then, if the Canadian economy is in worse shape by then -- as I expect it will be --
and if the Harper budget is ideological, inept and incompetent -- as I expect it will be --
and if the Liberals have a real leader by then -- that's a big IF --
and if he and the NDP and the Bloc can get it together again -- another big IF --
well, we'll see what can be done.
The benefit of all the news stories about how parliamentary democracy actually works means that by the end of January the public will be paying close attention to what the Conservatives are doing. And they will understand by then that a Canadian coalition would offer a serious, legitimate and viable alternative to continued Conservative divisiveness and ineptitude. If the Conservative budget is weak, then I believe public support for the Coalition would be strong.
And if the Conservative budget is defeated, and if the Coalition is rejected by the Governor General, and if an election is called, then the Liberals and the NDP would be fighting it together. In effect, this would create a Liberal-NDP merger and this might well be the best solution for the country anyway.
But this time, boys, keep the photo ops to just Iggy (or Rae) and Layton.

And of course, I could be wrong.

Absolutely correct

BigCityLib says:

Dump Dion, Install Iggy
. . . The party needs to be able to fight an election by the end of next month, whether there is still a coalition to belong to at that time or not.

Get it done, folks. Hold the vote by the internet or by phone.

Shorter

Shorter Globe and Mail editorial:

If we could just find a new pony to lead the federal Conservatives, then everybody would be happy again!

Great line of the day

For those Liberal MPs who are already chattering to reporters on the coalition's prospects, Boris at The Galloping Beaver has these words of wisdom:

Grits, you have a good thing going with this coalition idea. Don't piss it away by being Liberals.

Not surprising

Well, I can't say I'm surprised at this news:

The Strategic Counsel poll done for The Globe and Mail suggests a majority of Canadians preferred keeping a Conservative government over getting a new Liberal-NDP coalition with Bloc Québécois support.

Steve V thinks that Liberal supporters need to face this reality:

the coalition [is]losing the frame

and we should deal with it.
The coalition began losing the frame war when they spent three days yelling about separatism during Question Period -- ask Howard Dean how well screaming works as a public relations technique! -- instead of keeping their focus on the economy and their good economic ideas. The final straw was that awful tape fiasco. Both played precisely into the Rovian Conservative frame that it was the coalition, not the Conservatives, who were secretive, incompetent and untrustworthy.
In the EKOS poll which Steve references, the numbers indicate the public is just as concerned about the economy as the Liberals and NDP are, but only one in three were supportive of a coalition government led by Stephane Dion. EKOS concludes:

• The Conservatives are winning the initial public opinion war.
• There seems, however, to be a modest night-to-night trend that favours the oalition on all measures (i.e., vote intention, three-partner coalition).
• While too early to say, it may be that the public are digging into deep and irreconcilable differences on this issue.
• What started as a political skirmish over the economy now has the potential to produce deep wounds to national unity.
• Bottom Line: Despite initial favourable response to the Conservatives, the public are flummoxed and angry. Dispute seems to be aggravating existing national fault lines.

Over the longer term, I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadian public found itself nostalgic for what the coalition wanted to do. They had some terrific ideas:

We'll protect good jobs by supporting key industry sectors. The auto sector will get credit guarantees and low-interest loans, tied to producing low-emission vehicles Canadians want. Forestry companies with good business plans and a viable future will qualify for credit guarantees.
We'll create jobs straight away. Ready-to-go infrastructure projects will be fast-tracked. Retrofitting homes and building affordable housing can begin right away. Then there are jobs in renewable energy and expanded public transit.
We'll invest in families through EI reform, skills training and help for older workers moving to retirement. And we'll help seniors through pension protection, reform to mandatory RRIF withdrawals and increased Old Age Security.
We'll work closely with the new Obama administration on fighting climate change with a cap-and-trade system. And we'll work for fairer trade to make sure there are healthy markets for Canadian goods.

Compare these to the Conservative brain trust, who wanted to abandon pay equity and break the civil service unions. What century are these guys living in? Even in Harper's speech last night, he seemed to think that indirect measures like "injecting liquidity into financial markets" and reducing taxes and "undertaking due diligence on any further requests for assistance from the auto industry" would be sufficient.
The sad fact is that the Conservatives just do not know what they are doing with the economy. Harper won't have the flexibility to just steal some of the coalition's ideas -- his usual ideological filter would label these ideas as just too "socialist" -- and he doesn't have any ideas of his own, just slogans and name-calling.
Sigh.

Public Service Announcement

We interrupt this blog to make an announcement to the wingnuts with CDS (Cathie Derangement Syndrome) who have been infesting my comment threads today:

Dear Sir or Madam
You may be right at that.
Yours sincerely,
CathiefromCanada

Regular blogging may now resume.

What democracy looks like

Thousands gathered at this afternoon's Make Parliament Work rally on Parliament Hill, in spite of the Jean decision. We can't forget what democracy looks like.
These photos are from Scott:





and these ones by Marcus McCann, from Getting it Right:






Other rallies are tonight and Saturday.

The winner and the loser

I would think right about now Stephen Harper thinks he won and the Liberals lost.

Playing it safe

I wrote this post last night but didn't post it, fearing it would be bad luck or something.

If Michaëlle Jean grants Harper's request tomorrow to prorogue, it will be the "safe" thing to do.
The Blogging Tories will be high-fiving, most of the media will stroke their beards and hrumph about how she is only following the long-standing traditions of her office and she really didn't have any choice -- and us progressives will only sigh about what might have been.
As the winter of our discontent progresses, the Canadian economy will melt down and the Conservatives won't know what to do or how to stop it. The premiers will blame the prime minister and the prime minister will blame the provinces. The separatist movement in Quebec will pick up steam again. And Harper will abolish public financing of political parties in March, just before the Liberal convention.
No one will be blaming Jean for this -- except for Ed Schreyer:

Ed Schreyer said in an interview yesterday that granting a wish for the prorogation of Parliament at this point would constitute an evasion of the process of Parliament and should not be done.
“I'll put it this way and I will make this a plain-spoken sentence. Nothing should be done to aid and abet the evasion of submitting to the will of Parliament. I think one can stop there. It's about as basic as that.”
With a new Parliament having just opened, the only circumstances to justify prorogation, Mr. Schreyer said, would be a genuine emergency. “The only emergency seems to be a desire [of the Harper government] to avoid facing Parliament. That is not an emergency.”

Didn't matter, did it?
Sigh.