Watching the folks in Ottawa over the last few weeks is like watching a slowly escalating neighborhood battle grow into something outlandish over something that started as a result of something trivial like little Billy stepping on Ms. McGillicuddy's daisies.
Stephen Harper opted to prorogue Parliament and give all MP’s a few more weeks off then they would have otherwise enjoyed under the cloak of “It’s the Olympics Dude!!!”
Needless to say, the opposition has hit the spin cycle over these 18 or so days of lost legislating. So much so that they will waste three days of time debating a bill which will stop the government from every doing anything like this again…
While these entire matter is beyond stupefying, I hate being treated like I am an idiot and it seems that this is what all the parties in Ottawa seem to be doing right now.
Treating me and every voter in Canada like they are utter morons that have no idea how the political system works…
And the best part is that it’s working.
Why did Stephen Harper Prorogue Parliament?
Answer: Because as of January 6th 2010 the Conservative Party of Canada had the means to do something that no Conservative government has been able to do for decades.
That of course is end the Liberal majority in the Senate of Canada.
Now for those who don’t follow let me give you a quick breakdown as I understand it:
1) House of Commons introduces legislation, the bill is debated and fought over for weeks and sometimes months, voted on, if it passes, read again, voted on, if it passes, read again, voted on, and if it passes goes upstairs to the guys who sit in the red chairs (IE the Senate of Canada)
2) The Senate of Canada (That is made up of Senators who generally represent political parties) that is an unelected body looks at the legislation, goes bugeyed over it, they debated, send it to committee change it, send it back to the Commons to vote on it again, if the Commons says no, the Senate votes on the same bill they got in the first place, and if it passes it gets signed by the Governor General and becomes law (or its left to sit around till the end of the Senate session and dies on the floor so it needs to go thru Step 1 and 2 again)
Mr. Harper is pretty ticked that his legislation gets passed through the Senate at a much slower pace then it did when the Liberals were the largest party in the Commons and I would imagine he seems to believe the Liberals are playing partisan games with legislation.
You can form your own opinion on if that is true or not, but from best I can tell when a new session of Parliament begins the first few weeks are normally spent introducing legislation that died on the Senate floor because they opted not to get around to passing it.
Now of course the opposition has a different spin on the issue:
They are saying “Dude!!! We want to work and you are stopping us from working, and you are running from an investigation on Afghanistan”
Why is the opposition screaming about the Prorogue of Parliament?
Answer: Because it’s an issue that people actually seem to show some sort of interest in. Mr. Ignatieff is enjoying an approval rating that if memory serves is nationally around 20%.
Not exactly the type of number you want to see when your party is polling at 30% nationally, it basically means that in a best case 33% of the people who support your own party don’t approve of you as a leader.
We have watched this poor guy scramble to get a little love, he tries so hard to be likable but at least to me comes off a little creepy.
It’s all about politics.
They are saying Democracy is being hijacked because of the 18 or so days they will not be sitting in the Commons, yet they will waste the first five opposition days arguing about all the great things they could have done in those 18 days rather then actually doing them.
This is what makes me so apathetic towards politics;
We should as citizens of this nation know how our Parliament works, but we don’t and we allow that ignorance to be abused by politicians.
I think that abuse reached a boiling point (for me anyway) when I watched Bob Rae at an Anti-Prorogue Rally in Toronto…
As I recall he may have established one of the longest Prorogues in Ontario Legislature history from December 1994 to April 1995.
He didn’t even bother with a budget that year…
Along with two other rather lengthy breaks in Parliament as well.
The reality is that the right of the governing party to Prorogue Parliament has been a right since 1867, and I am a little stunned that the folks in the media have only realized this going into 2010.
Shouldn’t you be required to be well versed in civics to be a political reporter?
I hate political parties that prey on voters who are not informed with misinformation in an attempt to secure support, and the Liberal Party of Canada carting out Bob Rae to lecture the Conservatives on the practice of Proroguing Parliament…
Isn’t that sort of like carting Alfonso Gagliano to give the government a lecture on the prudence of treating tax payer money with respect?
I didn’t mind Iggy,
But I really don’t understand why the Liberal Party of Canada isn’t attempting to win over support with policy rather then propaganda?
Where is my alternative option?
I watch the Tories introduce legislation, and watch the opposition say they are opposed to it before the bill is finished being read, with zero alternative presented by the opposition other then “It’s Bad”
Okay, it’s bad, I get it.
So can you show me the better alternative?
Oh…You don’t have one?
This concept of parties’ campaign slogans being something along the lines of:
“Vote for us: We don’t have a plan, but hey…we’re not the Conservatives”
May excite some voters in some circles, but for the folks like me…well I need to vote for something not against something.
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