Klunk
That’s the sound of the Coalition lead balloon’s slow motion death spiral hitting the hard frozen ground.
The prorogation of this session of Parliament gives Harper and the CPC time to write an Election Budget, appoint a few Liberal MPs to sinecures, run an advertising campaign to paint the Libs and NDP as Bloc huggers, and prepare for the implosion of the Liberal Party.
The Bloc will simply go about its business knowing that Harper will have to toss bones in Quebec’s direction. As the Bloc has never made any secret of why it is in Ottawa its willingness to accept a veto from the Toronto Party and the NDP has not hurt it a bit.
The NDP’s halo has been a bit tarnished by the revelation that Smilin’ Jack is happy to do the business with the Libs and give the Bloc veto power as long as his boots are under the Cabinet table. Nothing which we didn’t suspect before but now we actually know. And we can be sure that the CPC will make Jack and the NDP wear it.
The real losers are, delightfully enough, the Toronto Party. Dion has proven pretty conclusively that he is “not a leader”. He was willing to underbus the most basic Liberal commitment to a Canada united by granting the Bloc a veto. (Watch for the Liberals, once they realize the Coalition is done, to try to pin giving the Bloc a veto on Dion and Dion alone.)
The party as a whole is in awful shape. It’s leadership convention is months away. It is still broke. It still has Dion and getting rid of him will be awkward as long as the faint hope of Coalition redux remains. It already has defectors.And with a leadership race on the party is unlikely to boot the defectors from caucus.
All in the CPC, NDP and Bloc emerge from this bloodied but intact. The Liberal Party, the Toronto Party, is, I suspect, doomed.
So a pretty good week.
Update: Andrew Coyne agrees h/t Ben the Tiger
December 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Jay – are you not a little bit concerned that allowing Harper to avoid facing the house will in fact entrench even further the powers of the PMO?
After all, one of the virtues of our system is that the government is responsible to the house.
I also think (as you argued on the radio) that had he faced the coalition on Monday he would have won the confidence vote.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Craig, I am not wildly happy about the prorogation for a couple of reasons and the strengthening of the PMO is one of them. Apparently the damage is minimal in that there were only 5 sitting days scheduled between now and the return of Parliament in January.
But I am happier about this outcome than I would have been had the “Coalition” hustled its way into office.
But, yes, I still think it would have been better for Harper to face the House and stare down what is turning out to be a fractured Liberal Party.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Count me as another conservative supporters (notice the small c) who isn’t 100% happy with Harper, how he runs things and the general anti-democratic chill that has settled over Parliament the last decade.
I do find it bizarre that some are calling anti-coalition Liberals “cowards” and “nervous nellies” and saying they should just toe the party line. Why, just a few minutes before that, these same folks were calling HARPER anti-democratic. But when an MP listens to his constituents? Er, I’m sure they’ll get back to us on this one…
I had to laugh out loud, though, reading “NOW”, which is Toronto’s leading “alternative” weekly. They have a different take on The Toronto Party: its a good thing that the Liberals only have support in a few city centers. Why, all that support in rural Ontario and Western Canada the Tories have? Easily dismissed. Not important AT ALL.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
From my point of view we’re getting an optimal outcome from a very bad set of possibilities: the NDP won’t be making any fiscal policy decisions, Harper will likely have to keep his sillier socon policies in the filing cabinet and Ingatief will have enough time and space to distance himself and what’s left of the Liberal party from this messiness.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I had writer’s block before the coup, but, thanks to Kate at SDA, I sure as hell don’t now!
December 5th, 2008 at 5:46 am
This couldn’t have turned out better for Harper’s support numbers than if he planned the coup himself ;-)
December 5th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I thought it was planned. The GG is his Moll.