The Confidence of Parliament

PART OF THE result of my bi-national upbringing has been a longstanding argument that I've conducted with myself my whole life over which system of government -- the representative democratic model as practiced by the United States, or the Canadian Parliamentary model, was more responsive to the citizenry. It's a great ongoing argument to have (assuming you are a politics geek) because there's great evidence on both sides. The Prime Minister is a Member of the Legislature, and has to face other Members in Question Period; Americans get to vote directly for the President; Congressmen and Senators represent their districts first, and aren't strictly required to vote party lines; MP's being part of the Executive more easily bring local concerns to Ottawa; a multi-party system where only 39% of the vote gets you a majority; the abomination that is the Electoral College...

But the extraordinary events which have transpired in Canada since Thursday add a compelling new chapter to the argument.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has ruled with a minority government for almost three years now. Except he hasn't really ruled that way. A high-stakes game of chicken has met every turn, as Harper dared the other parties to bring him down. Finally, sticking a wet finger in the air and sensing a chance to score a majority, he broke his own promise about establishing fixed election dates to bring down his government and go to the electorate. So an election-weary populace (we've had four general elections since the year 2000) voted again - in record low numbers. Harper didn't get his majority. Close, but no cigar, and he only got that close because of a particularly weak showing by the Federal Liberal Party.

Through the campaign, Harper showed his vindictive spirit -- the same spirit that has him at war with the civil service, Doctors, any number of other constituencies. He lost seats in Quebec by attacking the arts. He tried to put on a sweater and come off as cuddly to Canadians, and even those who supported him found it a bit creepy. This is a guy who sips from the Karl Rove cup of destroy your political enemies at all costs; everything else comes second.

There were flashes of trouble in that campaign. As the economic picture darkened, Harper didn't seem to have any plan for it. He insisted that Canada wasn't in a recession; he told people to buy stocks. But all that was prologue to last Thursday, when the Conservatives grimly read their economic statement in Parliament.

I'm going to cut through the parliamentary language here, and boil it down to what it was:

It said, "fuck you."

Instead of stimulus for the economy, it was filled with score-settling: the public finance component of political parties -- which was supposed to get rid of corporate and union influence, was set to be scrapped -- even though the amounts would have no real effect on the economy or the budget. What they would do, though, is cripple the other parties much more than the ruling Conservatives. And in Stephen Harper's calculus, that's always the most important thing. It also gutted Unions, and pushed a shockingly partisan Conservative agenda, while doing nothing to reassure Canadians that there was some sort of stimulus package in place for the cratering economy.

Well, for the reaction, let's look to Parliamentary blogger Glen Pearson:

A Prime Minister, promising in a throne speech a few days previous to work with the other parties to tackle a quickly descending economic situation, unleashes a fiscal update that all but blisters the paint off of any goodwill that might indeed have remained in the House. His brazen attack on all three opposition parties completely changed the dynamic of the Chamber in seconds - perhaps forever.

It’s not what we expected. To be sure, certain portions of the update had been leaked a day earlier, but the sheer scope of the Prime Minister’s statement suddenly laid bare everything that we had all feared might dwell beneath the veneer of the government’s civility. In that moment at least, we stared into a kind of abyss and didn’t like its depth. What fascinated me were the faces of the Conservative MPs during the reading of the statement itself. They appeared on edge, worried, and more than a little apprehensive, as if they knew danger was ahead.

No sooner was the speech ended than the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister left the House, along with half of the Conservative caucus. The faces on those that remained told the story in vivid detail. Listening to the response from the three opposition parties, you could tell from their countenance some kind of line had been crossed.

In the Opposition Lobby, I saw things I had never witnessed in my two years here. Bloc members were “high-fiving” NDP caucus members, and some women from the Bloc were embracing their counterparts in the Liberal caucus. It was incredible to watch.

Flash ahead to today. Harper is scrambling. His caucus is in open revolt. And as much as Tory bloggers may try to spin it, it's hard to see the looming Constitutional Crisis as anything other than the poison fruit of this PM's myopia.

That phrase, "has lost the confidence of Parliament" has never seemed more clear. The man managed to unite the NDP and the Liberals.

As Roy MacGregor put it in his Globe column today:

If Prime Minister Stephen Harper is indeed going down, it will be as the most successful politician in Canadian history.

The man who united the right and the left.

It is how he will go down as Prime Minister that puzzles at the moment, as this past week he has resembled some bizarre amalgamation of former prime minister Joe Clark, former U.S. president Richard Nixon and, unbelievably, former Roman emperor Nero.

Canada has a long history of leaders oddly out of touch with regular people, from Mackenzie King talking to his dead mother and dog, to Pierre Trudeau peering out the limousine window at the country lights and wondering aloud whatever do such people do?

But the lack of street sense - or even common sense - demonstrated last week took being out of touch to a new level.

There are other things buzzing in the background, too. In the United States, the palpable sense of hope that's resulted from the election of President Barack Obama (My God I love to type that) has left Canadians with a weary jealousy; a yearning for leadership -- the kind of leadership that hasn't been seen in this country for quite some time.

As I doff my Politico-geek hat and put on my screenwriter chapeau, though, the thing that strikes me about the extraordinary events of the last few days is that it's done what even Rick Mercer couldn't. It's made Harper interesting. He's the kind of deluded political figure you could acually write a good drama about. However the week goes down -- whether the Conservative government stays or goes, there's a movie in there.

Of course it's a movie that the CBC should do and never would, but at least that means maybe we'll get a play out of it. In any case, it's high drama indeed.

From Canadian Politics.

Man. Never saw that one coming.