Prorogation
Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean has granted Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to suspend Parliament, a decision that means his government has staved off certain defeat in a non-confidence vote scheduled for Monday.
After emerging from a nearly two hour meeting with Ms. Jean, Mr. Harper said Parliament will resume on Jan. 26 and the first order of business will be the federal budget.
And so it goes.
What will follow will be a number of weeks in which the Conservative Party of Canada can be expected to run a campaign that will attempt to discredit this coalition. This will cost them some PR points, but I expect it will have a good chance of proving successful. That, and the coalition needs the fickle Bloc Quebecois to hold on for another two months (almost) — which, in these economically unstable times, is no sure bet. If Quebec’s economy takes a hit before January 26th, the coalition could very easily dissolve.
This also gives Harper time to shift tactics and present the coalition with a difficult choice: either support the government or vote them down on a budget that will likely be tailored to more than adequately address their previously stated economic concerns, which they have been touting as their real reason for wanting to supplant the government that Canadians elected back in October.
At which point we’ll see what their real priorities are.
(Many thanks to my wife Grace for alerting me to this news)
Free Canuckistan! (December 7, 2008, 1:10 pm).
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