from breadwithcircus.com
All hell, or at least a little part of it, has broken loose in Ottawa and Canadians are all riled up. We’re hearing our Prime Minister go into full attack mode, manufacturing a unity crisis where there need not be one. There is a lot of noise and bluster, but I think that we’ve lost sight of the issue that put us here.
Ignore the red herrings. The issue is that the Conservative Party has lost its mandate to govern.
A little reminder now about the way things are supposed to work. When Canadians vote, they vote to elect a local MP, not the broader government. Add all 308 MP’s together and you’ve got a House of Commons. Whichever political party or collection of political parties has the support of the majority of MP’s in the House makes up the government, because in order to pass legislation, you have to win votes. The issue at hand is that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have lost the confidence of the House of Commons. They can’t win a vote, which means that they can’t pass legislation, which means that they can’t be the government.
The Prime Minister’s rhetoric is designed to get you all worked up emotionally. By talking about treason and sedition, invoking the image of evil separatists legislating the breakup of the country, or evil socialists running the treasury, Harper is obfuscating the real issue and playing the fear card. This is cynical, divisive, and shameful.
In order to survive, Harper needs to make a deal with one of the other parties. This has worked for him in the past. In the previous session of parliament, Harper passed legislation with the support of the same separatist bloc that he is now demonizing. Harper is going to need their support again if he is to govern, but given the way that he has burned all his bridges, that seems very unlikely to happen. In the last election, just eight weeks or so ago, Canadians elected a minority parliament. A minority parliament is dependent upon a coalition (at least informally) among different parties in order to function. What we need is a block of MP’s capable of getting 155 votes on any given issue. They can “prorogue” or delay parliament from taking any votes but that is a measure designed solely to buy time for the Conservative propaganda machine to try to scare the hell out of you. Don’t forget what the real issue is here. The Conservatives are incapable of governing. We really ought to see if any other combination of elected MP’s is up to the task.