Like people, all countries have problems. The prime example that comes to mind is of course Haiti whose capital city and government were obliterated in last week’s earthquake that has left hundreds of thousands of people dead. Iran has problems too; while its leaders are ignoring calls to end its nuclear program, students and others who oppose the regime, are taking to the streets in massive demonstrations that are reminiscent of the fall of the Shah. Then there are countries that are in a constant state of war or terrorist attacks such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
The great United States of America is not immune from serious problems either. The government is spending trillions of dollars that they don’t have and are acquiring by either borrowing or printing. No thought is being given to the future ramifications of this massive spending. The government is spending while attacking the private sector, most recently the banks that are being subject to punitive taxation because they are too successful. And Canada has problems too. We have a big one – take that Haiti! Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament. The horror!
The word “prorogue” comes from the Latin word for postpone. Prorogation means to postpone a legislative or parliamentary sitting without actually dissolving the legislative body. The difference between proroguing Parliament and simply adjourning is that in the former, all legislation that is currently before that parliament dies. It can however be reintroduced. Parliament, that was set to come back in January, will now not sit until the beginning of March. Much of the time that Parliament will not be in session will be when the Winter Olympics are held in Vancouver and very few people will be paying attention to politics.
Aided by the anti-Harper media, the opposition has turned this prorogation into the number one issue facing the country today. Liberal MP Ralph Goodale was quoted as saying that Harper is a despot for doing what he did. If there can be anything worse than a despot leading a government it has to be the opposition that refuses to bring that despotic government down because the polls are not favourable. A Facebook page has been started called “Canadians against Prorogation”. Almost 200,000 Canadians have signed up highlighting the fact that this truly is a national crisis. While this is referred to as a grassroots uprising it is more likely an Astroturf one; organized by the opposition parties in an attempt to attack the government. It’s hard to find groups of people who congregate in bars and coffee shops talking about the prorogation crisis. It would be interesting to learn how many of these tens of thousands of Canadians who have signed up on Facebook, before Harper did what he did, thought that proroguing was some sort of Ukrainian dumpling.
The reality is that the opposition is going after Harper for proroguing Parliament because they have nothing else they can go after him on. And it’s not for a lack of trying. A lot of legislation will die but the government cannot be attacked for that reason because the critics don’t like the legislation anyway. The absence of parliamentary sittings, of which there are many, is now being used to try and prove that the government is lazy, doesn’t want to work (although the government still has to govern) or is hiding something (when will these guys learn that Harper’s secret agenda stuff doesn’t work anymore?).
The opposition has been largely ineffective, mainly due to the ineffectiveness of the politically inexperienced Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff
The opposition has been largely ineffective, mainly due to the ineffectiveness of the politically inexperienced Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff. The opposition tried to attack the government on the economy. They attacked the deficit that occurred because of stimulus spending while Canadians knew that if any other political party had been in power, the deficit would be much higher. Even the most unsophisticated Canadian realized that the worldwide recession could not be pinned on the evil Tories. Canada’s unemployment rate is lower than in many other countries including the U.S. and at the end of 2009, the stock market closed 30% higher than it had been the year before.
Next the opposition tried to attack the government over allegations that detainees who were turned over to the Afghan authorites by Canadian troops were tortured. While many Canadians would have been shocked and upset if their military tortured prisoners, only the elites seemed to be upset at the fact that torture by Afghanis in Afghan detention centres, takes place. The Opposition became indignant when the government accused them of accusing Canadian troops of torture. Then they actually did question what the Canadian troops were doing. Ignatieff, aka Iffy (formerly Iggy) wants to investigate “the conduct of our troops in the field” while Liberal MP John McCallum, who as Defense Minister didn’t know his Vimy from his Vichy, said on CBC government that “they may have been committing war crimes.” While he didn’t specify who “they” were, interviewer Suhana Meharchand supplied the answer that McCallum adopted; that “they” were “the government”. How the government could commit war crimes without the men and women serving in the military committing them were left unanswered by McCallum and his flunky, Meharchand.
It is clear from both the opposition parties and the media that the proroguing of Parliament until next March is the gravest threat facing the country today. And we think other countries have it bad. If prorogation is the greatest evil facing Canada today, Stephen Harper must be doing something right.
