Back in 1970, during the October crisis, I predicted that someday the Liberal Party of Canada would deem elections unnecessary, and appoint themselves "government for life", much in the same manner as Idi amin and Robert Mugabe did in their own countries. I expected this move to originate from Pierre Trudeau, to whom democracy was at best a pain in the keester. I did not expect to see it coming from Paul Martin, who will likely take the title for being one of the weakest and most ineffectual prime ministers this country has ever seen.
However, I can’t have it both ways; I can’t condemn Martin as being a functional idiot and then claim that the brilliant strategy he has used during the past year to stay in power is the fruit of his intellect. My guess is that Martin is a puppet and someone else is pulling his strings. Who in this country is totally contemptuous of the democratic process and has a powerful influence over Paul Martin? None other than the puppet master himself, Maurice Strong, who served as Martin’s political mentor for many years.
While there have been some miscalculations, such as assuming the Liberals would get another majority by calling an election last year prior to the Gomery Commission’s hearings, their strategy was brilliant and might have worked if they had managed to win that majority. They called that election because they knew full well what was going to come out at Mr. Gomery’s inquiry and they wanted to make sure they had a mandate prior to that happening. Had they won a majority, as they thought they would, then it wouldn’t have mattered what the commission uncovered because they would have had five years to govern, which history shows, is enough time for Canadian voters to develop amnesia.
The current strategy is equally brilliant in that they know that they will be defeated sometime this week. They just want to be in control of when and how they will be defeated. Forcing the opposition to defeat the budget will allow the Liberals a brilliant campaign platform on which to run.
"It’s Harper and the Conservatives that are keeping the cities poor and killing all the social programs we wanted to enact for you, the voter," they will say. and of course they will be right.
In acquiescing to the Liberals’ demand to hold the vote of confidence over this week’s budget, Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe have in effect given the Liberals the power to define the issues around which the upcoming campaign will be fought. The smart thing for them to have done would have been seek adjournment each and every day until such time as the Libs took the hint and sought an appointment with the Governor General. I don’t think anyone in Martin’s camp has the kind of smarts to dream up a strategy that effective. Consequently it has to be someone like Strong.
Of course, the Liberals’ Greek chorus, the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail are doing their darndest to help them stay in power by vilifying Stephen Harper for blowing his cool last week. Funny, politics. On Monday the media condemns Harper for being too much of a non-entity sans personality, a policy wonk; then by the end of the week the same media crucifies Harper as being too hot-headed and precipitous to make a good prime minister. This of course is a classic illustration how the L/liberal media lives only in the moment. The statements we made two days ago are "inoperative". Please ignore them. It’s what we’re saying today that matters. and what we say today won’t matter tomorrow, if we chose to see things differently then.
For the past year the good people of southern Ontario have insisted that they prefer the crooks over the fascists, and now they find themselves in the unenviable position of finding out that the crooks are the fascists. Ignoring the will of Parliament is a pretty serious undertaking. If Canada supports this, then we may as well not have any more elections in the future, as clearly, Canadians will have let it be known that they do not want to live in a democracy.