Not much new today

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Well, the stage is set now, Harper will most likely prorogue parliament.  He gave a pretty calm televised address, which is a far cry from the madness during the rest of the day.

I am pretty pissed off at the optics that the Conservatives are putting forward that this coalition is some "unholy" deal with the separatists.  Although I am no fan of the Bloc, this tactic will only inflame the separatist movement, just like I am sure the coalition idea will inflame separatist movements in Alberta.  This really tells me that the Conservatives have given up hope of getting more seats in Quebec.  They seem destined to create a minority hell where we will never have a truly stable government ever again.  We are quickly approaching the longest string of minority rule in Canadian history (the string of Diefenbaker and Pearson minorities during the 60s was slightly longer).

Large cities are going to continue to vote Liberal/NDP, Alberta and rural Canada is going to continue voting Conservative, and Quebec will continue to vote for the Bloc.  It is very discouraging that with this situation that the Conservatives refuse to make deals with the opposition parties on a vote by vote basis like they did at the beginning of 2006.  Back then, I was optimistic that the Conservatives would get through some legislation that I supported, such as an elected senate, removing the long gun registry and ending the wheat board monopoly.  None of these things happened, and Harper pushed the opposition too far.

And Harper is finished

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Well, it is official, the Conservatives are done, unless they do something extreme like proroguing the parliament.  I don't think that is really an option, and I doubt the Governor General would allow it considering the reason for doing it.  The dissent in the Conservative ranks is already beginning to show with Stockwell Day and Rob Nickolson not rising when Harper spoke in Question Period.  The look on Harper's face when Jim Prentice spoke and the opposition shouting "leader!" was priceless.

The only option to save a Conservative government now is for Stephen Harper to resign.  He has had many chances to get a majority government, and now he has failed to provide confidence in the house.  I think it is very unlikely the Conservatives will ever get a majority so long as he is the leader, and it will certainly only get harder if Michael Ignatieff becomes Liberal leader (despite my disdain for Ignatieff, he is certainly going to have broader support than Dion).

When it all comes down to it, I think Canadians are going to be pissed off at all parties.  Although I welcome a coalition to bring down Harper, I would be lying if I said it will last a long time.  I fully expect there to be an election next fall, and I predicted that long before this happened.  What a mess.

Harper delays his demise

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Good to see my buddy Mike on Don Street in Winnipeg blogging again.  He is always a good person to debate with and can be very tricky to beat.

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In the face of impending defeat, Stephen Harper has delayed a confidence vote by a week.  This gives him a week to cave into the opposition demands, or to poke them some more.  I wouldn't put it past Harper to do the later.  But seriously, this fiscal update is without a doubt the biggest political blunder since John Turner "could have said no".  If the Conservatives are defeated and there is an election, it will be the shortest lived parliament in history.

To suggest that the Conservatives have sole right to be in power because they won the most seats is rediculous, as has been shown in history.  In 1925, the Conservatives won the most seats, but because the Progressive Party was more likely to side with the Liberals, they were the ones who got power.  Of course, that only lasted a couple of months before they fell, but it lasted longer than the Arthur Meighan government, that fell after 3 days.  However, I think in this case, the other parties have a self interest in keeping the Conservatives out for a while so that they have time to recover from the last election.  I would anticapte that a coalition government would last until next fall, enough time for the Liberals to get a new leader and probably enough time for the Conservatives to consider throwing out Harper for such a foolish move.

What the hell are the Conservatives doing?

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Don Martin is one of the best political analysist in Canada, and I think he hits it bang on with the Conservative plan to "save money" by eliminating public financing of political parties.  Having followed the Green Party since the 2004 election, it is clear that they would not have been able to mount the past two campaigns without public financing.  By having public financing, it allows smaller parties who may have more support with people less able to donate money, it allows these smaller parties to operate.  What is really jarring is that the Conservatives have such a high amount of donations, that the relative amount they get with public financing is far less than the other parties.  All of the opposition parties get more than 50% of their funding from the public financing, while the Conservatives only rely on 37%.

The sad thing is that this was likely just a way to divert attention from the fact that this fiscal update offers up no plan to help the economy.  The only way they balanced the budget was by putting in $10 billion in anticipated sales of crown corporations.  Selling crown corporations is the worst way to budget, as once they are gone they will never again provide benefit to the government.  There is no stimulus package either, something that every other major economy is putting forward.  As exports decrease, unemployment will increase, and there needs to be plans in place to create jobs now, before the rate increases too much and tax revenue goes away to start those jobs.  Shoring up infrastructure is an obvious way to create jobs and create important spinoffs.

Considering how bad this fiscal update is, there may very will be another election.  I hope instead that the opposition parties can come up with some sort of agreement to make a coalition government for a year or two in order to give these delusional Conservatives a time out and to let them recover from the election.