The Parliament of Canada has been prorogued — i.e., the current session has been discontinued or suspended — by the Governor-General. Unlike the tin-pot dictatorship described as Canada by some media asshats and assorted members of the official opposition, Parliament will continue in January under Prime Minisiter Stephen Harper, at which time all elected representatives will have a chance to defeat the government in a House vote. Democracy lives.
So much for a crisis in a frozen teapot as presented by Canadian mainstream media. The media will have that time to anoint a new leader for themselves, since they have such an extreme dislike for Mr. Harper.
Thanks to thetyee.ca, here’s an explanation of how Parliament works:
Canadians never vote directly for a “government.” Instead, we elect a member of Parliament in our local constituency. It is only after 308 individual MPs have been chosen that the process of forming a government begins.
The Constitution Act of 1876 doesn’t even mention the prime minister or political parties. MPs are everything.
How MPs organize themselves is entirely up to them. This is why two MPs are able to currently sit as independents; there could just as easily be 308 of them. Most MPs have organized themselves into groupings known as parties. This simplifies the process of forming government but doesn’t change the constitutional pre-eminence of individual MPs.
There is just one basic requirement: The government must at all times enjoy the confidence of the majority of MPs in the House of Commons.
By unwritten constitutional convention, the Governor General calls upon the leader of the party with the most MPs and asks him or her to try to form a government that enjoys the confidence of the House. When that party holds a majority of the seats, the result is a foregone conclusion. This gives rise to the illusion that parties win the “right to govern.” But they just get to try to form a government first, and happen to have enough seats to deliver.
Things are different when no party emerges from the election with a majority. Again, the Governor General calls upon the leader of the party with the most MPs and asks them to try to form a government that enjoys the confidence of the House. To obtain that confidence, the newly designated “prime minister” must persuade MPs from other parties to provide their support. If he or she fails, it is open to another party (or parties) to indicate that they can get the job done — whereupon the Governor General will let them try.
Since the 308 individual MPs whose preferences drive this process are directly elected by Canadians, all of this is entirely democratic. — thetyee.ca, Michael Byers
Read the entire article here.
Harper’s biggest problem is the Canadian media, who have a strong dislike of how he deals with them. He plays his cards close to his chest. There are no leaks to media favourites to get out the party line, such as there were under previous governments. This eats at them like a bout of listeria from their favourite deli sandwich, resulting in their characterization of him as confrontational and deceptive. Of course, through transference, the opposing parties have picked up on this line and have adopted it as their crie de coeur, resulting in a dog-chasing-its-tail routine that is quite amusing.
The new darlings of the Candian MSM are the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Québecois, who, in the media’s collective mind, must be the annointed alternative to Canada’s existing government. The trouble with that is that Canada can’t afford to have them. Fortunately for all of us, the media doesn’t govern, although it likes to think it does.
