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

More by Aaron Wherry

Erin Weary

The part where nobody voting for Michael Ignatieff in Etobicoke Lakeshore could possibly have imagined that meant voting for Foreign Affairs Minister Libby Davies.

Our system has rules that yeild certain results, and people condition their votes on those rules. What part of someone who voted for John McCallum didn’t think they would get Jack Layton as Minister of Industry do you not understand?
TJ Cook

Erin Weary: “No Canadian, thinking in real-life terms, thinks that the GG really has the power to appoint as PM a guy that was…”

Nobody except every Canadian who understands how parliamentary democracy works in the event that the government loses confidence. This is what happens in real-life terms – it even has a precedent in your lifetime.

Also, she’s not being asked to “appoint a PM”, that’s the role of the government after forming within Parliament.
Jack Mitchell

Karol, by that logic we could just suspend Parliament indefinitely, King Charles-style, and Harper could govern without every consulting the House. That really is the logical conclusion behind the “We Won” Tory talking point, isn’t it? Because once the Nation has endorsed you, to whatever degree, you have carte blanche.

The only catch is that, historically speaking, people who try to keep Parliament shut indefinitely get their heads cut off.
Erin Weary

Actually, in your idiotically pedantic terms, the Queen/GG really does appoint the PM (see Sir Alec Douglas-Home). But that just proves the point–just because it is theoretically true of a Westminster system, or because it has happened before, doesn’t make it the right move or even a legitimate move in any meaningful sense. But fine–you rely on 1985 Ontario, I’ll rely on every other election that everyone in Canada today has ever voted in, and we’ll see what the public has to say about which is a sounder basis on which to form a government.
http://www.michaelharrispaintings.com Michael Harris

I submit this painting from a series on Canadian values as a comment on the current political crisis. It seems particularly poignant in light of what we are witnessing. It is called Stumble.

http://www.michaelharrispaintings.com/Stumble.html
Jack Mitchell

Erin Weary, you are arguing against the supremacy of Parliament.
Erin Weary

No, I am arguing against the ability of a leader with half the seats of the plurality party becoming PM as part of a coalition that was explicitly put out of play in the last election. If they don’t have confidence in the government they should damn well defeat it, and then they should demonstrate that the people really had lost confidence by winning an election. There is nothing there incompatible with Parliamentary supremacy.

Anyways, this conversation is not advanced by me presenting real questions about legitimacy and then someone stating irrelevant trite points about the Westminster system. If nobody is going to respond to any of the arguments actually presented, then I guess all we can do is wait and see what the public thinks, now or in 2011.
1777

@EW doesn’t make it the right move or even a legitimate move in any meaningful sense

How so?

I take it you are saying it is wrong or illegitimate because Canadians believe, wrongly, that when they vote they are voting for a PM and a government, and that if their party of choice gets more seats than anyone else, even if it is only a minority of the seats, then should that government lose the confidence of the house – and if the opposition parties put themselves forward as a viable alternative – we should have an election because … Canadians are dumb who should pay more attention to how they’re democracy works?
Jack Mitchell

Of course we’ll see what the public thinks. We have seen what the public thought: they elected the House as currently constituted! The House represents the people! That is not a technical point, it is the very basis of our representative democracy. You have no right to question the legitimacy of the House as such.
bloorstmystery

I’m sure it’s just me, but I have no idea where people come up with motivation to go out there and promote Stephen Harper like he’s paying them. This is the same Stephen Harper who thought same-sex marriage was an affront to justice. Stephen Harper.

Not only that, the dude is mean. Let’s be real: that economic update was a jerk of a thing to do. It was cold. You know that. I know that. You’re not even arguing about that. You may not like the coalition, but you really want to go to bat for Stephen Harper? O this blog? Man, that is cold.

I want to be the first (on this blog) to declare that my political support is not jerk-proof. That is to say: I will vote, sure. But if the leader of the party I voted for goes out there, acting like a jerk all around town, I’m out. I just can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to go to bat for this guy.

Besides, it’s Stephen Harper. Seriously.
Erin Weary

@1777— what’s to “pay more attention” to? IT DOESN’T WORK THIS WAY IN CANADA, and the experience of 30,000,000 Canadians in dozens of elections attests to that (and see Potter today). Again, if the GG denied a Bill and Canadians complained, nobody would say “yeah, well, that’s their own fault–this is how our Westminster system work”.
Karol

Jack Mitchell
You keep on twisting every argument out of proportion. Posponing a vote for a week is a prudent thing to do. I would say postponing a vote for a month would be a prudent thing as it would allow cool heads to prevail. It seems that Three Stooges are so preoccupied with keeping the momentum (ball rolling) that they got so much in front of the orchestra that they lost even a sight of it.
It all make it very funny as Harper’s deception that he is weak worked wonders on these clowns and they completly forgot that Harper carries a baseball bat behind his back.
Erin Weary

and again @1777– the substantive reason we should have an election is that we want the ability to elect platforms as well as personalities. We may not like our MPs views on lots of things, but we might like the platform they are running on.

Think about it—your argument implies that nobody could ever have a legitimacy complaint if their MP crossed the floor without running in a re-election, because we don’t elect parties or PMs but just MPs and they would be the same MP. What a dumb, unrealistic argument.
Sean Stokholm

“Again, if the GG denied a Bill and Canadians complained, nobody would say “yeah, well, that’s their own fault–this is how our Westminster system work”.”

Because that would be a case of the GG opposing the will of the house. If the government falls and Dion becomes PM, this would be a case of respecting the will of the house.
Coyne Crisis

Erin Weary writes: “Again, if the GG denied a Bill and Canadians complained, nobody would say “yeah, well, that’s their own fault–this is how our Westminster system work”

The Governor General does not have the power to refuse assent to a bill.
Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

Karol, if delaying the confidence motion is good, and the longer the better, I expect you’re in favour of Harper suspending Parliament until government grinds to a halt because the government can’t spend any more money.
Erin Weary

@CC—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. It is not legitimate to give a bunch of guys who lost an election during which they claimed they would never form a coalition government the right to form a coalition government.

I repeat, why is everyone so afraid to go to an election over this? Maybe because you know exactly how the public will see it?
Chris B

So Karol you are saying that they should delay the vote for a week to allow cooler heads to prevail, yet you are also suggesting that if the opposition DON’T take this chance to form government, Harper will clobber them with a (hopefully metaphoric) baseball bat?
Gee that is some incentive you are laying out to the opposition there.
Erin Weary

@CC—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. It is not legitimate to give a bunch of guys who lost an election during which they claimed they would never form a coalition government the right to form a coalition government.

I repeat, why is everyone so afraid to go to an election over this? Maybe because you know exactly how the public will see it?
http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

We may not like our MPs views on lots of things, but we might like the platform they are running on.

Better still, what if they actually governed according to their platform, instead of making things up on the fly. I want to live in that fantasy world. What a treat that would be!
Sean Stokholm

“I repeat, why is everyone so afraid to go to an election over this? Maybe because you know exactly how the public will see it?”

Why are you so afraid to let a majority of MPs, who were elected a few weeks ago, attempt to form a government? (I don’t mind a new election at all, but it seems fair to let the dynamics of the last one settle themselves out first.)

And I REALLY don’t think you Conservatives want to start playing the platform consistency game. Do you? (Hint: Harper comes out looking even worse, if you decide to play).
http://prairiewrangler.wordpress.com/ Olaf

Sean,

And I REALLY don’t think you Conservatives want to start playing the platform consistency game. Do you?

Not sure if you’re referring to me, but yes I do want to play that game! The platform consistency game is a Sunday night staple at the Olaf residence.

Anyways, I was implying the Conservatives, and their fiscal stimulus, none of which was included in their platform.
Michael S

Oh, so they know they’ve lost and they are foaming up their base.
Sean Stokholm

Olaf,

No, I was jabbing at Erin’s logic.

Platform Consistency is a great game, I agree! We used to play Parliamentary Prorogue, but had too much trouble pronouncing it after a few glasses of wine…
Michael S

And keep at it, Stephen, a couple more days of this and Dion will get a friggin’ majority.