Robert Paterson's Weblog

A Guide for the perplexed - Canada's Constitutional Crisis

 In the Parliamentary system, an unwritten constitution based like the Common Law upon precedent and practice, the given is the idea of indirect democracy. Voters elect a "Parliament". They do not vote for a Prime Minister. To operate as a government, a Prime Minister has to have the effective "Confidence of the House" - crudely put - he has to have the votes. In majorities, this is easy. The use of the party system guarantees the votes.

In a minority, the PM has to keep the confidence of the house by balancing the appeal to his base while keeping the opposition reasonably onside.

Mr Harper broke rule #1 in a minority by setting forth a program last week that could only been seen as a provocation. He threw down the gauntlet. What made this worse was that he had said going into the session that he would be more conciliatory. He had called the last election because he claimed the house was not working.

I suspect he did this because he thought that, with the leadership of the Liberals up for debate and the historic differences between the Bloq and the Liberals,  he could get away with it. With a recent election, he knew that the nation was not up for another election. I am sure that the idea that the 3 other parties could do a deal would have seemed very remote to him.

But this plan misfired and Liberals and the NDP formally worked out a plan with the support of the Bloq. With an agreed on 18 month plan - they would have had the votes and hence the confidence of the House. They had an "Opposition Day" last Monday that would enable them to table a vote of non confidence. Mr Harper exercised his prerogative and canceled the Opposition day for last Monday and extended it to the coming Monday.

He asked the Governor General, who represents the Monarch in the system, to prorogue Parliament until late January when he proposes to have the budget.

Practice and precedent suggest that the GG should have denied this request. Prorogation usually happens very late in a life of a Parliament not at their beginning where the issue of confidence is the central point.

The nearly 3 hours of meeting suggest that he may have argued her into this. In practice the GG should act like a judge and given the PM her decision - one way or another.

So now we will have 6 weeks of bitter, bitter, bitter public debate.

So where doers this lead us now?

In a time of great crisis, we have no Parliament. A Government  that has avoided losing a vote of non confidence by a stratagem, can continue for 6 weeks without any accountability - it can also harness the full power of the state to act on its behalf.

We now have a precedent. That Governments can avoid being held to account in Parliament. It is too early to know what this means but it cannot be good.

Worse, we will now endure a 6 week period where all sides will have to campaign - using fear and the "other" to get their way in the court of public opinion. Already the Boq are being called "Traitors and Treasonous". Those who disagree with Mr Harper are being called un Canadian. This is early days and the rhetoric is already at a fever pitch.

There are two very damaging possible outcomes to this process:

• That the simmering divisions in Canada in the regions burst into flame - The West versus the East and Rural Versus Urban - so much so that the tense fabric of the nation is rendered. Too much is said and done to enable healing and any chance of facing the future in a united way is lost. Worse, these kind of splits can set up the conditions where a bad event can lead to actions that could finish the country

• That Canada's 150 year use of the British Parliamentary system - itself a product of more than 1,000 years of trial and error - is destroyed and replaced with a "plebisciteocracy" - the rule of public opinion
  

Regretfully, I see nothing that could be good as a counterweight to these gloomy predictions

In fact I fear the worst as I write here.

Americans know the price of a split in values in their nation. So do Spaniards, Bosnians, the Irish. It is easy to forget that good people can be whipped up into a frenzy given the right circumstances. Once the line has been crossed, even the best Nations can destroy themselves.

What saddens me, is to see how our own crisis has been manufactured out of political opportunism and miscalculation. Just like the response to the murder of the Archduke inadvertently set in motion events that caused WWI.

We live in dangerous times.

Canada - A Jugoslavia of the North? Constitutional Crisis will now get worse

Milosevic - stirred up the Serbs appealing to all the latent fears and hatred. Once a level had been reached, the country of Yugoslavia dissolved into a bitter civil war and can now never be put back together again.

The decision of the Governor General to allow the Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament, gives Mr Harper the opportunity to appeal to the fears and hatreds in Canada for his own ends. We will now have an 8 week period where the battle lines will be set up.

Here is how it could line up;

• In reality, Alberta is Harper's base. They have a Serb like memory of past slights. They feel hard done by the rest of Canada. They feel better than the rest of Canada. It's economy is based on oil. It's people share the culture of the midwest in the US. They feel that power is concentrated in the east. They have had the east have a grab at "their" oil wealth in the 1970's. They suspect that the rest of Canada wants their money now. They despise the values of urban places such as Montreal and Toronto. They tend to be religious. They don't like "foreigners". The Harper government is their government. This is the first time that they have been so well represented.

• Harper will go strongly to this base and to the rural vote. Their deep feelings of alienation and lack of self confidence will be brought to the surface.

• He will accuse the Bloq of being traitors and those that do not agree with him of not being real Canadians. He will do his best to make French Canadians look like Muslims in Yugoslavia. This of course will cause many Francophones to react and open up the breach that has been closing for 25 years. Many Quebecers may also have their own feelings of alienation rekindled.

• Urban Canadians - the vast majority of the people who are of course under represented in parliament - will be accused of being dissolute and sinners whose failure in manufacturing and services has caused the economy to fail and now have their hand out - seeking to grab Alberta's inheritance. Many in Ontario will feel that they too have been let down by the idea of Canada. For most of the modern period, Ontario has paid more than its share to support the weaker parts. Now they have problems, Alberta doesn't want to play.

• Any chance of civility in Parliament will be finished. All trust will be lost. There will be no way that any opposition member can work with Mr Harper. Anyone who shows moderation will look like a mug. The middle ground will get squeezed into nothing.

• The country will be split like Yugoslavia - we will be a tinder box waiting for the spark.

• Then it only takes one event - a murder, a bomb, whatever and the possible disintegration of our country is set in train - for some rabble rouser will use the event to gain his advantage

It's quite extraordinary how fragile we really are. Who would have thought at the winter Olympics at Sarajevo that in a few years that city would be under siege? The context of the worsening economy and the fight for scarce resources will deepen the tension.

It is sad that the GG did not take this possibility into account. Was she bullied? It's a strang role. Most of the time, it's ceremonial. But like war itself, there can be moments of great tension. The 2 1/2 hour long meeting suggest to me that she was turned. The meeting should have taken minutes. Yes or no. There should be no debating. The GG should make the call and then send the PM on his way. To debate the topic means tha the GG has given up her power.

Let's hope I am wrong on both counts.