Monday's events

Compared to last week, today seemed rather mundane.  First the Liberal leadership debacle.  Dominic LeBlanc,  realizing he has absolutely no chance at winning after near invisibility last week, decided to back obvious front runner Ignatieff.  Dion stated that he will step down far sooner than May, as the Liberals make a push to find a new leader before parliament resumes on January 26th.  I can tell you nothing will make all Canadians happier than to see Dion gone.  The big question is will the Liberal executive appoint Ignatieff and go with a token leadership vote in May, or will they decide to go with a more broad-based vote?  Ignatieff has a lock on the executive, due to their reluctance to back the failed former NDP Premier of Ontario.  Maybe they will surprise us an appoint an interim leader who is more pragmatic than Dion while Ignatieff and Rae bicker.  I'm guessing they will go with appointing Ignatieff, but I would warn the Liberals to remember the anointment of Paul Martin and the problems that caused.

The second big thing of the day is the Quebec election.  It appears that Jean Charest and the Liberals got just enough seats to win a majority.  It is probably less an endorsement of the Liberals than the absolute rejection of the ADQ and the poor leadership of Mario Dumont to increase the broad base support of the ADQ.  It also doesn't help that the ADQ are fairly close on many levels to the federal Conservatives, who aren't exactly popular in Quebec.  I think that Charest is a bit of a douche but given the alternative of a traditionally fiscally irresponsible PQ, what choice did Quebec have?  Marois is a very decisive personality herself, especially after the debacle over her mansion.  Well, the dream of a right wing party in Quebec seems to be over, anyways.

Now something completely different, the US is starting to fly aerial drones over the Manitoba border.  I wonder if they fear some sort of invasion by all the border straddling Mennonite communities.  But seriously, one has to wonder at the point of this exercise other than to build a level of mistrust between Canada and the US.  I find it highly unlikely that a single drone flying over will have any effect on the illegal drug trade.  The lessons of prohibition were obviously not learned in the US.  If they want to end the organized crime associated with the drug trade, the most effective thing would be to legalize and regulate these substances.  Of course, the US could never regulate anything and would rather spend billions on a futile battle across a border that would be impractical to monitor all the time.

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.