Pie Palace

I’ve always voted for hope. Every time I’ve walked into a polling both, I’ve said to myself: “what do I want the future to look like?” I have a soft spot for sustainability and social justice, so I’ve usually given my vote to the Green Party. But thanks to yesterday’s fiasco at Governor General’s, I don’t want to play nice anymore. I want to punish Stephen Harper.

I feel like voting strategically for the first time in my life. I just want to see Stephen Harper fail.

Democracy can only thrive under the rule of law. In the case of a parliamentary democracy, such as Canada’s, the “rule of law” is a set of polite conventions that every parliamentarian is expected to follow. A party cannot govern without the tacit support of 50%+1 of the sitting MPs. If a party loses that support, the Governor General may either choose to trigger an election, or allow a coalition of other parties to take the reigns of power. This week we’ve seen Harper running scared. Instead of losing his minority government he first delayed a non-confidence vote that would have toppled him, then prorogued the House of Commons.

This is not how our Parliament is intended to work. When a politician knows their time is at an end, they should gracefully step aside, regroup, and attempt a come-back. Not take their ball and go home.

From my perspective, it looks like Harper values power more than anything else. He’s hoping that a two month break will be long enough for him to gather enough popular support (by demonizing Quebec) that he will get a majority in a mid-winter election.

In the background, our economy is slowly grinding to a halt as the Canadian dollar falls, tens of thousands of jobs are lost, and the government hemorrhages money due to fiscal mismanagement.

Photo credit: harperdictatorship.ca.

I really shouldn’t be surprised:

The Green Party isn’t being included in the debates because three of the four establishment parties don’t want the Greens there. I’m surprised that they cared enough to threaten to pull out.
(Update: Edited for style)

The election has begun. And we’re already being let down by our media and our current Prime Minister. Let’s consider a line of questioning on CTV Newsnet coverage (around the 7:30 mark).

Let’s consider the exchange from two angles:

First, there’s the consistency angle. As much as Harper dislikes the Senate, he happily appointed Conservative insider Michael Fortier to the Senate in 2006, and then appointed the unelected Fortier to his cabinet. If Harper feels so strongly about the Senate, why is he appointing unelected people to the senate?

Second, let’s consider Tom Clark’s response. Instead of calling the Prime Minister to task on his inconsistency, he happily skates over the statement and instead asks Harper about hypotheticals (and later asks Harper to promise that he won’t get personal).

It’s easy to see why voters become cynical. The Prime Minister has ignored the spirit of his 2006 election platform, and isn’t being held to task for it. In a rare interview, a journalist has the opportunity to take him to task, but opts instead to drop the name of his media outlet, and ask an essentially meaningless question. Reporters have a responsibility to their viewers – they shouldn’t let a politician get away with this kind of dishonesty.

This is going to be a long election.
(Update: Fixed spelling mistake in title)