I don’t know about you, but eveything feels…different. So many things will work out differently this year! 2008 is over! I checked on the calendar, and there’s a new digit at the end of the year! In politics, I feel quite confident that the following changes will result:

1. There will be no election in 2009. We’ve had so many elections lately! Your MPs will realize that they are condemned to get along, and they’ll get right down to business. Quiet diligence will be the tone. The people demand no less.
2. Stephen Harper will not cooperate with the Opposition on everything, nor should he, because he has different ideas from the other parties and a pretty strong mandate to pursue them. But he’ll realize that, because they outnumber him, he can win only by conscientiously explaining his ideas to Canadian voters. Ambushes and brinksmanship were fun while they lasted, he’ll realize, but they’ve stopped working. The next time he goes on the teevee, it won’t be to save his own bacon, it will be to patiently make the case for modest, restrained government action. The Canadian people can handle a serious discussion about public policy, and by God, Stephen Harper’s the man to lead that conversation.
3. The Liberals, blessed with the leader the overwhelming majority of MPs wanted all along, will stop back-biting. Blackberries will be turned off on the way into caucus meetings. Hy’s will shut down because nobody will be left who wants to gossip. Jane Taber will start to feel like the Maytag Repairman because nobody ever calls any more with gossip designed to make the next Liberal look bad. Continue…