Harper And The Crowned Decider

Interesting times, eh?

The Canadian economy appears perched on the edge of an abyss and our government is imploding like a blue flame fart gone awry the other way. The attention of the nation is engaged again, and big picture politics are unfolding much in the same manner as an Aristophanes play. Quite suddenly, yawns have become raised brows, and real power is coming out of the closet to rule. Over the next week we will see who wields the sceptre in the Canadian family. Hint: she wears the finest tweed, handmade in England by appointment to herself. And I’d wager she’s not the least bit amused.

To recap: Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is heading to Rideau Hall in a few hours to plead with Michaelle Jean (our Governor-General) to hold her off from asking outgoing Liberal leader Stephane Dion to form a new coalition government. Harper, in typical and true cock-of-the-walk fashion, pissed off the opposition so much last week that the three other parties decided it was in the country’s best interest to roast his nuts in a bonfire of his own vanity. Very precious stuff.

The national media have been pretty well wrapped up in the inside baseball of their own “process” stories. They’re focusing hard on the exchanges in the House of Commons and the optics and jingoistic passions of all the florid egos. Maybe too much so. It would be more interesting if they highlighted the historical repercussions of this particular shit storm’s end game.

Like children fussing over who gets the biggest cookie, our parliament has run so amok that Mother must now intervene. She has to, is entitled to, and will do. And that means something. For some Canadians, it’s our first “close our eyes and think of England moment” since Goose Green was stolen by those pesky Argentines. For others, not so much.

Just victorious in a national election, the Conservative leader feels he has a mandate that supercedes that of parliamentary tradition. The trouble is, he doesn’t. There’s no such thing as a mandate in parliamentary democracies that allow for coalitions. He may get a delay/suspension and be able to table a budget first (and be a bit of a public relations co-dependent super dick to our general displeasure), but he’s a Dodo, gone.

Dion may have made promises to both the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois in order to win their votes of no confidence against the Prime Minister next week. He could have promised Quebec half of Ontario. That’s politics. For certain, parties are encouraged to be conniving and deceitful at every turn. That’s how things get done. High stakes. No fucking around. Business. But Her Majesty is in power now, and if she’s as absolute a monarch as she’s supposed to be she’ll have her representative, the Governor-General, do her bidding. I really believe it’s too momentous and unprecedented a decision for Jean to take without authoritative counsel, and by that I don’t mean she’ll canvas some constitutional scholars and lawyers. It’s Harper’s only hope to thwart the 3 on 1 power play.

So, if I’m right, our government is about to be chosen by the Queen. We haven’t the faintest idea as to what she wants for Canadians. As I said at the top, these are interesting times. This is the way we do things. It is written.

But bear in mind the times. The scope of the recession isn’t really making inroads into our national consciousness yet. No one knows how bad it will be. We’re also still fighting a war against phantoms in Afghanistan (so long as we can afford it), and otherwise not doing so hot in other areas, too. This is not a normal political landscape, either nationally or globally. Not by any means. The Queen’s thinking could be our fate, but we know neither.

And we should. Around the world, those who are in power today and those who will lead in the next decade will be instrumental in deciding how and if we recover from a myriad of dangerous human devices. Everything from climate change, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism to unchecked disease, poverty, and the global financial meltdown is now on the table marked desperately urgent. As an international player (despite ourselves) we will have a say and a stake in how we deal with the messes we’ve made. The decision as to who should strike Canada’s path through the dark unknowns ahead is an important one, and it’s the call of a charming tea cozy.

Love her and respect her though I most surely do, no measure of my fealty to the Crown can overrule the fact that I never voted for her or her representative. As a lifelong sentimental monarchist, son of an Englishman, and holder of a British passport, it’s an uncomfortable trick of conscience. That our future might currently be a tut-tut topic over High Tea in the far off Palace of Buckingham disquiets me to no end. It’s just too weird; too old school; too illogical.

So with all his flag waving, Separatist fear-mongering, and nauseatingly Bush-like bravado, remember that Harper is yanking a chain tied to an anchor made of Constitutional lead. If the media want a “process” story, they could start with that, but instead we can tolerate the circle jerk drama of soundbytes for the time being, even if they drown the hundred trumpets that lead to a rousing chorus:

Rule Brittania, eh. Brittania rules the waves…

Let’s just hope she has a better strategic mind than she has taste in hats and men.

UPDATE: The Governor-General has sided with Harper. Very odd call, and a mistake in my book that will have far-reaching consequences for our relationship with the crown. Much of the blame for what will happen to our economy over the next seven weeks while parliament is in forced recess will fall at the bejeweled feet of the Governor-General.

3 Politicians Walk Into a Bar…

And I thought the most embarrassing thing in politics between Canadian Thanksgiving and American Thanksgiving would have been Sarah Palin’s interview in front of the turkey getting slaughtered. But surprise, surprise, it might be the Amy Winehouse-ian train wreck that is currently underway in Ottawa right now.

Barely six weeks after an election that voters yawned over, that put nails in the political coffin of at least two party leaders (presumably), and didn’t change a single thing, politics is back. Only this time it is a sequel directed by Michael Bay and full of awesome political explosions.

The main question is: Did Stephen Harper lay a trap so big, so savvy, so long term, and so many chess moves ahead that he might actually bring himself down as well? Or did the Conservative Bobby Fisher make one too many moves that has caused The Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc to somehow think it is a good idea to bring the government down, leaving us with the amusing trifecta of Stephane Dion as Prime Minister, Jack Layton as Finance Minister, and Gilles Duceppe as Minister of Foreign Affairs?

That last sentence had me waking up in a cold sweat that felt like a cross between Bobby Ewing after that dream season on Dallas and Han Solo after he was frozen in carbonite.

Let’s be clear. Harper started this by proposing to take away some federal (read: taxpayer) money, $28 million to be exact, for the down on their luck political parties. This set the wheels in motion for a possible vote of no confidence. Now the so called ‘Coalition of the Credulous‘ claim it is because the government didn’t push through a fiscal stimulus goody bag package that won’t do much to stimulate much of anything. You know, because every other nation has thrown millions into stimulus packages, we need one too.

“I’m not a big fan of short-term stimulus packages,” said Don Drummond, chief economist at TD Bank. “They don’t really generate very much short-term stimulus and they very quickly become long-term structural problems.”

But wait, there’s more. The Tories record NDP conference calls, and the NDP has a secret deal with the Bloc long before last week’s economic update. And potential Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff apparently thought the whole thing was a mess, until he brokered his own deal to be Prime Minister upon any successful coup.

And maybe this was his game plan all along. Harper and Co. have already pulled the plug on the plan and have started floating spending ideas willy-nilly, while leaving the three opposition leaders out in the wilderness still pushing to bring down the government. Is it a total turkey shoot? Is it an Ashton Kutcher-led punking that has the separatists sleeping with the establishment Grits and the socialists? Clearly it seems to be working, as it has lured some political vampires back from the dead.

“They’ve pulled (former Liberal prime minister Jean) Chrétien and (former NDP leader Ed) Broadbent out of the political crypt to try and give (Liberal leader Stephane) Dion the chair he couldn’t make during the election,” says Thornhill MP Peter Kent.

The irony is that under the minority environment scenario, all of this is how the game is played. It proves that the system actually works. The Government drops a bomb, the opposition calls for war, the government changes its mind, and then everything goes back to normal. At least that is how it is supposed to go. And Harper has either blinked or hoodwinked the opposition. It’s too soon to tell which.

The United States got Obama and change and we get the almost hilarious “Coalition For Canada”. It must be the start of a joke. I’m sure of it.

Dion, Layton, and Duceppe walk into a bar…