Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

What has just transpired

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 3:32pm - 83 Comments

More on this later, but today’s Question Period in a word: gruesome.

The day that the Prime Minister accused Stephane Dion of siding with the Taliban was my personal previous precedent. This surely exceeded that.

Tags: coalition government, house of commons, Parliament, Question Period, Stéphane Dion, Stephen Harper

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Doug Smith

Erin, I’ve heard a few so-called Constitutional Experts speak in the past day or so. It was clear in their POV that the prime task of the GG is to see if a group can form a government and have the confidence of the House. It is also acknowledged that an election is possible. One theoretical abuse of dissolving government is that a PM can repeatably go to the polls if they get a result that they don’t like. I’m not sure, but perhaps this is why it is preferred to have the current elected house form a government.

I’m pretty easy on whether we have a coalition or election. I have to wonder though. If Harper is still the leader of the CPC and there is another election, then what? Another minority government with the same distrust in the PM? Surely that would lead to another vote of non-confidence. The PM tried to screw over the other parties the first chance he got. That is the core of the problem. The CPC hasn’t fixed that, and quite rightly the opposition shouldn’t have to stand there and get kicked in the head with a steel-toed boot.

And if you are worried about broken election promises, deceitful statements and declarations, then please don’t stop at the Liberals, NDP and Bloc. The CPC has a pretty good record of it too.

I simply wish that Harper had immediately owned up last week and possibly avoided this path. Obviously things have a life of their own now. Two things I’m completely convinced of is that the cause of this whole thing is Harper, and that it is a democratic process. The one thing I’m almost sure of is that no matter what happens, it will be bad for Canada.
Carrie

I don’t know who this Erin person is, but they stopped being worth reading about halfway up this thread. I’ve completely tuned them out.

To read comments from arguing against how our parliamentary process was set up and how it works, makes me mourn the idea that Canadians will ever understand our government system. Citizens are apparently prime for manipulating and lying to, which incidently would support how Harper got to power in the first place. Only idiots would knowingly elect someone like him. Apparently, we have more than our share of idiots in our voting public. God help us all.
David

The long, tiring, unproductive era of greater decorum and civility is over.

Did it last a week?
Coyne Crisis

Erin Weary writes: “Wrong. What about Alberta 1936 (or 1937?). But again, like I explained to TJ at 16:33, this is precisely the point: the GG can in theory do all sorts of things the GG shouldn’t in practice do.”

The Governor General has never in the history of Canada refused the assent of a bill passed by Parliament. In Britain, Royal Assent has not been withheld since 1707. Quoting from Forsey: “Assent has never been refused to a federal bill, and our first Prime Minister declared roundly that refusal was obsolete and had become unconstitutional.”

Emphasis mine. If it’s good enough for Sir John A., it’s good enough for me.
Coyne Crisis

Oh my. Unclosed HTML tags are embarassing.
Coyne Crisis

Almost as embarrassing as spelling mistakes!
Stephen

This isn’t refusal of assent – this is inviting the opposition to form a government in the face of the “sitting” government being unable to maintain control of the house, which has clearly happened on at least one occasion (1926) and likely happened on one other occasion (1979, although I’ll concede there hasn’t been enough written about Trudeau’s apparent refusal to form a coalition in that scenario).

Sir John A. probably had it right in that scenario, but the table was overturned long after The Old Leader passed on. If he managed to comment on King / Byng, though, then he really should have been voted Greatest Canadian in that poll of a couple of years ago. THAT would have been mighty impressive.
Coyne Crisis

Stephen: pay attention before you comment. I know what this is about. I was responding to Erin’s erroneous claims that Royal Assent can be withheld.