A Parlaimentary Dictatorship? Maybe, but...

This year I got into a huge argument with my American, college aged, niece, who, completing her first year at an ivy league university in the US, informed me in no uncertain terms that, according to her political science prof, Canada was a "parliamentary dictatorship". I begged to differ, although I did see her point re: Canada not having the same system of checks and balances that are embedded in the American Constitution.

However, what is happening now in Ottawa, demonstrates how Canada's system works to maintain some control on the party in power. Just in case the one or two of you who are reading this are not Canadians, the current parliament is headed by the Conservative party led by Stephen Harper. In our recent fall election, the Conservatives won more seats than any other party, though not more than half - the Liberals, New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois hold the other seats.

Since every piece of legislation must be passed by a majority vote, this means that the Conservatives have to "play ball" with the other political parties. The Harper government already had a minority gov't going into the recent fall elections, but S.H. wanted a majority. By refusing to present legislation palatable to any of the other political parties he forced them to vote against the legislation - their vote of "non-confidence" automatically dissolved the gov't, prompting the fall elections.

By failing to give them their coveted majority, Canadians were telling the Conservatives that they want S.H to work with the other parties. But, no, the Conservatives decided to push parliament again - essentially using the electorate as a bargaining chip - elections are costly and will effect the economy badly due to the uncertainty of their outcome. The Conservative tactics are, either play the game we choose or we will toss the ball to the people again, and again until you do it our way. The threat is: "you don't want to be blamed for causing the gov't to fall, do you?" This cynical political move was meant to cow the opposition parties into complying with the Conservative agenda.

This time around, the other parties have called the Conservative bluff. Since the Liberals and NDP together have enough seats to form a gov't, they have made an agreement to do so, should the legislation before the parliament not be passed next Monday, which is very likely. This is called a "confidence vote" and if it does not pass, parliament will be dissolved. Once dissolved, one of two things could happen - the Governor-General could call an election OR she could ask the Liberal / NDP coalition to form a gov't.

The Conservatives are planning to spend lots of tax payer money on a massive ad campaign which is expected to accuse their opponents of ruthlessly plotting to steal power from the democratically elected Conservatives. Of course, they will gloss over the fact that the Liberal and NDP MPs were also democratically elected. They will also gloss over their own inability / unwillingness to "play well" with the other parties.

Unfortunately, there are right wingers in Western Canada who will see a Liberal / NDP minority gov't as a loss of voice for their region and will feel hard done by. They will likely, as a talk host did this AM, blame the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois rather than their own Conservative party who really have opened the door to this "coup" by pushing their agenda rather than trying to work with the other parties.

The sad thing is that it would be better for Canadians to have a solid gov't working together to support our economy in these uncertain times. A fact that Stephen Harper cynically used to grab a political advantage, hoping that by holding the Canadian electorate to ransom, he could force the other political parties to pass his legislation as is. Stephen Harper has proven that he is not fit to lead Canada. He was given the opportunity to provide true leadership by putting aside partisan politics and working with the other parties to guide Canada through this crisis. Instead, he took the opportunist's approach and tried to press the situation to his political advantage.

I hope that that S.H.'s efforts to have parliament shut down before the vote can take place next Monday fails and that the Liberals and NDP with support from the Bloc will have the chance to lead our country through these dark times. Much rests on the Governer General's head so we will see what stuff she is made of in the week to come.

If you've made it to the end of this bit of writing, then you are probably interested enough in Canadian politics to read about it first hand from the CBC .