What’s happening in Canada?
Canadian politics inevitably gets overshadowed by those of its bigger neighbour the United States, but my man in Canada (Bob Chandler) sends me this message:
“We’re in the midst of a “political crisis” in Canada…fallout from the economic crisis.
Conservative Party Prime Minister Steven Harper introduced an “economic statement” that included a whole bunch of neo-con right-wing measures. He’s in a minority government situation and the opposition suddenly developed a spine and have decided to move non-confidence…bring him down and have signed a pact to create a centre-left coalition government drawn from the Liberal and New Democratic parties but with the tacit support of the Bloc Quebecois.
The non-confidence motion was supposed to be introduced on Monday, but Harper went to the Governor-General and got her to “prorogue” Parliament till the end of January. So in effect, the MP’s are “locked out” of Parliament till the new year. The “GG’s” decision flies in the face of Parliamentary history here. Last time something like this happened (1926) the GG called in the opposition parties to form a government…rather than force another election (what the governing party at that time had asked for).
I think this is only just starting to get covered outside of Canada the last couple of days…saw something on the BBC website yesterday. Canadian politics has suddenly become not so boring! I’ve posted a couple of things on my blog here.”