I find it quite amusing that until recently the opposition and the media were wailing that nothing was getting done and Harper had no direction other than his 5 promises.

Now when Harper agrees and reiterates that parliament is dysfunctional then all of a sudden the pundits are proclaiming all of the bills passed and totally reversing themselves.

I’m a little rusty on my Psychiatric terminology but there is definitely a mental illness for that kind of disillusional behavior. Either that or they are the actions of a two year old. Cheers.

Now Dion refuses to talk to Harper until September 8th. Not even a phone call..the opposition has gone AWOL!

Isn’t that a defacto vote of non-confidence?

Election for sure, and the opposition is going to wear it for refusing to communicate with the government.

Has anybody remembered that it’s summer? Parliament is out of session. Besides, if witnesses can refuse to show up for a Parliamentary summons until the day they feel available, I’m not sure why on earth a party leader must turn up immediately for the PM.

I keep coming in here and seeing people who are unable to get their minds around more than one shiny thing at a time.

It’s both. It is time for an election, AND what Harper is doing is undemocratic. Why? Because the House passed a law. If Harper wants an election, the democratic way to do it is to put forward a vote of non-confidence in the House and either not vote, thus allowing the Bloc and NDP to carry the day, or to vote for it. Only this way do we have proper and legal affirmation that the entire House wants the election. Heck, if he does the former, he can even say “We chose not to vote, as we are obviously biased in thinking we’re doing a fine job. We’re relying on the rest of the House to either affirm that or send us to an election.”

madeyoulook’s examination of previous minority government elections is interesting, and I’m quite surprised at how many have been called by the minority leader. Personally, I’m a bit bothered by that. Why should a minority party have the ability to terminate the government, against the wishes of the majority? That’s not democracy, in my eyes.

T, thanks, I too was surprised to learn that 4 out of 9 completed minority-government Parliaments ended because the PM “advised” the GG to pull the plug (anyone who is down this far in the comments, and still interested, will find more — excrutiating? — detail in the “She can say no” post chez Coyne), after durations of as short as 3.5 months (Dief’s snap call in response to Pearson’s suggestion that the Liberals should retain power despite winning fewer seats).

And, for any parliamentary democracy ner-, uh, experts, out there, I left hanging a few Q’s about the Governer General’s legal and “convention” powers and duties when a minority-govt PM come calling to dissolve. Help wanted!

Thanks.

I’m dying to see what kind of campaign Dion runs, and how he performs on the campaign trail.

I suspect he is woefully unprepared in many areas, and will be just as mediocre at campaigning as he’s been at everything else.

madeyoulook: Except I don’t think that can happen. You can’t forestall the possibility of amendment by saying “If you amend, it’s against confidence”, all you can do is try to keep the amendments out, and if they get in anyway, vote against it yourself. Even the budget has these opportunities for amendments.

That said, even if it did go down exactly that way, to me it’s far preferable to the Governor General deciding to go against the wishes of the majority as previously expressed in C-16 without any formal indication that the majority has changed its’ mind.

One thing I keep coming back to is that the Government of Canada, in my eyes, is not just the party in power, but the entire House of Commons. I wish all the occupants thereof would actually act that way, but the “dirty tricks book” of the conservatives suggests that no matter what happens, it’s not going to.

T, thank you for offering a serious analysis to my whimsical flight of fancy from Hansard-in-Wonderland last night. You offered that fictional scenario a legitimacy it did not deserve.

The GG can do as she pleases with or without the (non-)fixed date law, AFAIK no law could constrain her anyways, and subsection 1 says so. Most of us would see that subsection as recognizing and allowing the fall of a minority government to lead to a surprise election, no more. Harper wants us to believe it renders everything else in the law moot, at least for minority Parliaments, but for the fact that October 2009 was fixed right there in the text itself. Hypocrisy score goes up indeed.

What, if anything, by law or convention, would stop GG from saying: “Françoise, Mr. Harper doesn’t want to play anymore, please get M. Dion on the line,” rather than reflexively drop the writ.

And I wonder if Stéphane would be a little less rude and answer the bloody phone for that call…

If the GG picked up the phone and called the other party leaders, that works just fine for me as well. Basically, so long as she’s ensured that she has the backing of the majority of the House when she calls for the dissolution of Parliament, I think democracy, and the legitimacy of the GG, has been properly served.

Of course, if it takes a while to reach them, then it takes a while. If conservative MPs can’t answer a parliamentary summons at the time requested, I really don’t see why the leader of any party has to jump at a time requested by the PMO.