When dalton prorogues

Shady · February 12, 2010

From what I can tell

What does that mean?

the only reason it really fell apart is because a lot of Liberal MPs were furious that Dion was still in charge. Their contempt for the Bloc and the NDP seemed to be the second biggest reason.

Complete nonsense. All you have to do is look at the polls during that time. Harper's popularity went up dramatically. The idea of a coalition government between the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc polled extremely low. It would have been political suicide to go on with their coalition takeover. It would have lasted for a few months, and then led to a Conservative majority government. That's why they backed down. The Canadian people didn't like it. Again, democracy at work!

Smallc · February 12, 2010

Complete nonsense. All you have to do is look at the polls during that time. Harper's popularity went up dramatically.

Complete irrelevance. Polls mean nothing in between elections.

g_bambino · February 12, 2010

Complete irrelevance. Polls mean nothing in between elections.

Exacly. Or, they shouldn't, anyway.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

Don't be stupid. She was already considering it well before the confidence motion was going to be tabled. If you and I were considering it, you can be damn sure the GG was too. Being an intelligent and thoughtful person, she considered her 'potential' options in advance. One was to allow Harper to prorogue and let the opposition wake the f up. If not, option 2 was to refuse and allow the non-confidence to go through. Next she either had to refuse their offer to form a coalition or accept it. Neither of those two were good options by pretty much any standards save the NDP's and Bloc's.

For a Governor General to refuse the advice of a Prime Minister is so exceedingly rare that the 20th century had only two examples (King-Byng Affair and Australian Constitutional Crisis). For the GG to refuse to prorogue would have produced a constitutional crisis, pure and simple.

As I continually say, our system affords the PM very wide powers and a great deal of latitude in their use. The up side is supposed to be that those powers are supposed to be used responsibly. To use prorogation for blatantly partisan ends, and more to the point, to survive a confidence vote that he is certain to lose is a bridge too far, which is why you won't find a single instance of any other PM in the entire Commonwealth or the old Empire ever doing it before.

Can you see my eyes rolling?

Probably from your brains leaking out your eye sockets.

Some people don't seem to be able to argue within the framework of rational human behaviour, such as the above.

Translation: I have no cognizant argument, so I'll mock instead.

You're like myata's bizarro world twin.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

Complete irrelevance. Polls mean nothing in between elections.

They technically mean nothing, but believe me, when a party, for instance, loses 14-15 points within the space of four months, it means something, which is why Harper, too arrogant to recall Parliament, is trying to buy everyone off with canceling spring breaks.

Smallc · February 12, 2010

Oh, you're right, they mean something to parties, but the anger at the coalition wouldn't have stayed if they had formed government and become successful. Those are big ifs, but it's not as if polls around the coalition would have remained static.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

Oh, you're right, they mean something to parties, but the anger at the coalition wouldn't have stayed if they had formed government and become successful. Those are big ifs, but it's not as if polls around the coalition would have remained static.

Let's put it this way. If a party who gets little more than a third of voters to give it the thumb's up can form a government, I don't think one can claim that the Coalition would somehow have been in a position of less support. Maybe it would have been, I dunno. I didn't like the idea because we would have been replacing a party that was at least internally stable and, for the most part, could form a functional government, with a group of parties with long-standing differences under the leadership of a guy who had already lost the support of his own party. To my mind that raises serious questions of viability. As we can see from coalitions in other countries, small differences can get magnified many fold once in power. I'd sooner have a reckless Parliament-fearing guy like Harper in power than a multiheaded monster that would probably have been able to do nothing but throw even greater amounts of money around.

PIK · February 12, 2010

Buy elections???? What exactly are they????

That is when you come out with something very juicy just before a by election, which in turn is called a buy election. Ottawa west I think, is full of nortel people ,now all of a sudden dalton is going to cover part of thier pensions with our money, right or wrong this something that could have been done months ago and then in TO I think all of a sudden he finds a extra 15 mil for a hospital, just before a buy election.

PIK · February 12, 2010

They technically mean nothing, but believe me, when a party, for instance, loses 14-15 points within the space of four months, it means something, which is why Harper, too arrogant to recall Parliament, is trying to buy everyone off with canceling spring breaks.

Why would he not cancel the spring break since he prorougued, if he did not then you might be on to something ,but he did'nt.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

Why would he not cancel the spring break since he prorougued, if he did not then you might be on to something ,but he did'nt.

Read that sentence back to yourself and tell me if it makes sense. I can't quite follow your logic here. He prorogued, so he needs to cancel spring breaks. The inverse is, of course, that if he didn't prorogue, he wouldn't have needed to cancel spring breaks. The logical conclusion is therefore that prorogation interfered with the business of Parliament.

Moonbox · February 12, 2010

Granted, the situation of a prime minister advising the prorogation of parliament to avoid a potential confidence motion had never before occurred in the history of responsible government, and so there was clearly some hesitation (about two hours worth), given that the viceroy was operating without precedent. But, other reasoning aside, Jean could not have dismissed Harper's instruction unless said instruction threatened the stability and operation of government, which it clearly didn't.

Jean's role in this regard is to ensure parliament functions properly. She has the power to make it happen. If Harper was doing this merely to stall an inevitable confidence motion then that WOULD have threatened the operation of government. As it turned out, the coalition was a poorly thought-out mess and to have allowed the government to fall WOULD have threatened the operation of government. We would have either ended up with a brain-dead coalition that would have operated by committee (generally works out poorely) and would have fallen within months. Either that or we would have gone back to the polls a couple months after the election.

I understand that the GG almost ALWAYS follows the PM's advice and that the BP system and common law operate on a great deal of precedence. That being said, however, our systems also operate on common sense. Last January, things worked out the way they should have.

You can go on and on about how Harper abused the political system for his own gain blah blah whine whine, but the coalition in and of itself was a terrible idea put together by a bunch of self-interested morons (particularly Dion).

g_bambino · February 12, 2010

You can go on and on about how Harper abused the political system for his own gain blah blah whine whine, but the coalition in and of itself was a terrible idea put together by a bunch of self-interested morons (particularly Dion).

Are you addressing that to me? If so, you should pay more attention to what I write.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

Jean's role in this regard is to ensure parliament functions properly. She has the power to make it happen. If Harper was doing this merely to stall an inevitable confidence motion then that WOULD have threatened the operation of government.

Her role is, save in the most unusual of circumstances, to follow the advice of the Government. As unusual as proroguing to avoid a confidence motion was, it's almost impossible to imagine any GG intervening where there had not yet been a loss of confidence.

As it turned out, the coalition was a poorly thought-out mess and to have allowed the government to fall WOULD have threatened the operation of government. We would have either ended up with a brain-dead coalition that would have operated by committee (generally works out poorely) and would have fallen within months. Either that or we would have gone back to the polls a couple months after the election.

On that we agree. The Coalition would have been a horror story that would make the kind of horse trading and chest thumping that has been going on for the last six years look well-mannered and honorable in comparison. Some of the posters here don't seem terribly familiar with the kinds of dirty dealings that go on in formal coalitions in many parliamentary systems. Besides, the thought of Jack Layton having any direct say over the finances of the Federal government fills me with chills (as I suspect it filled more than a couple of Liberal MPs).

I understand that the GG almost ALWAYS follows the PM's advice and that the BP system and common law operate on a great deal of precedence. That being said, however, our systems also operate on common sense. Last January, things worked out the way they should have.

The problem here is that even if one can argue that the December 2008 prorogation was common sense (and I don't deny that that argument holds some weight with me), there are grave risks to this kind of a precedent. Today it may work out for the good of the country (but don't try to tell me that Harper wasn't using every trick he could find to keep his govermnent alive), but once you have the precedent, it is now available to people whose goals are far less noble, or at least where the outcomes are far less clearly advantageous as a whole. While it's true that our system does not afford a government the same degree of powers while Parliament is not in session that it does while Parliament is in session, Orders in Council can still allow some degree of effective legislative powers (although my understanding is that money bills must always be approved by the House of Commons, it was this sort of thing that made Charles I recall Parliament after the Personal Rule, his ability to raise money was severely limited while Parliament did not sit).

Another possibility, even with defeat in the House, the GG may have viewed the growing concern of Liberal MPs as a sign that the Coalition could not reasonably form a government. Her choice, at that point, would have been an election. These all likely held some weight, but at the end of the day, for the GG to deny a government's request would have been extraordinary. Until defeat in the House, Harper was Prime Minister, and thus enjoyed the power to advise the GG, and the Coalition had no formal standing to make request to form another government.

The foolish thing is that the Liberals may have had a reasonably decent chance to be asked to form a government without a formal coalition. It's quite possible, and probably likely, seeing as the election had only been weeks before, that the GG would have asked the Liberals to form a government.

I have stated continuously that the Coalition's largest error, from a tactical point of view, was the chest thumping they did. If they had kept their mouths shut and not tipped the Tories off, it's quite possible the government would have been defeated. Once defeated, Harper would have been forced to resign, would no longer have held any advisory powers, and the GG is on her own to decide what happens next. Then the Liberals could have stood up, said "We have an agreement to form a coalition with the NDP, and the Bloc promises to play nice", and it's quite likely that the GG would have, considering the proximity to the last election, asked the Coalition to form the next government.

The problem was that the 2008 coalition seems to have pretty much tried to duplicate Harper's attempted coalition a few years earlier. The Opposition sending letters to the GG was always a curious strategy to me. The Opposition has no power or right to advise the GG, so I never quite understood why either Harper or the 2008 Coalition partners did it. It certainly shows a lack of imagination on the Coalition's part.

You can go on and on about how Harper abused the political system for his own gain blah blah whine whine, but the coalition in and of itself was a terrible idea put together by a bunch of self-interested morons (particularly Dion).

That may be all true, but that doesn't make the precedent any better.

Moonbox · February 12, 2010

The foolish thing is that the Liberals may have had a reasonably decent chance to be asked to form a government without a formal coalition. It's quite possible, and probably likely, seeing as the election had only been weeks before, that the GG would have asked the Liberals to form a government.

They really didn't. There was no chance whatsoever that a party with (77?) seats in the house would even come close. They would have needed the cooperation of ALL three opposition parties to keep government afloat, which meant a coalition.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

They really didn't. There was no chance whatsoever that a party with (77?) seats in the house would even come close.

Which, is, in fact, irrelevant (see the King-Byng affair). The GG can ask any party to form government. I'd say there would be better than even odds, considering the short time after the election, that it would certainly be possible, even probable, that the Liberals would have been asked to form a government. This is not without precedent.

They would have needed the cooperation of ALL three opposition parties to keep government afloat, which meant a coalition.

Of course it meant a coalition, whether a formal one, or the informal one (which is basically what we have now, a bill-by-bill seeking of consensus). My point is that once the Tories were defeated, the GG was perfectly within her rights to ask the Liberals to form a government. At that point the Liberals, NDP and Bloc could say they'd be willing to form a formal coalition with Liberal and NDP ministers, and with a commitment from the Bloc to support the government for a specific period of time. After the government has fallen, this lies completely in the GG's power.

I'm not saying it would have been a good outcome, I'm saying that, from a strategic point of view, if the coalition wanted to succeed, the way to do it wasn't to give the Tories ample warning.

Moonbox · February 12, 2010

I'm not saying it would have been a good outcome, I'm saying that, from a strategic point of view, if the coalition wanted to succeed, the way to do it wasn't to give the Tories ample warning.

Okay. It's just as likely however, that the GG would have dissolved parliament and we would have gone to our second election, which could very like have ended up with a CPC majority.

Either way, you still haven't convinced me on the dangerous precedent. The circumstances of the boondoggle last year were unsual in numerous ways. First, it was immediately after an election that gave the current gov't a stronger mandate than it had last time. Second, it was at the onset of a recession.

The governor general is there to prevent the scenarios you are throwing at us. I know the role is largely symbolic, but there are potential exceptions. If not, what's the point in having her at all?

Smallc · February 12, 2010

Okay. It's just as likely however.

That is extremely unlikely such a short time after an election. If the Liberals said they could form government, and the other parties promised to support them (in a formal coalition or not) then I would expect the governor general would let them.

ToadBrother · February 12, 2010

Okay. It's just as likely however, that the GG would have dissolved parliament and we would have gone to our second election, which could very like have ended up with a CPC majority.

I wouldn't want to lay bets either way. There is precedent for another party with less seats than the Government forming a new government. As our system is as much based on precedent as on formalized constitutional documents, I'd hesitate to say what the GG would do. If the Liberal leader signaled that he could form a coalition with the other parties, I'd say the odds are better than 50% that the GG would ask him to form a government. Let's remember here, the party system itself is not formalized in our constitution (that is why Great Britain could form a National Government during WWII, everyone just agrees to get along).

Either way, you still haven't convinced me on the dangerous precedent. The circumstances of the boondoggle last year were unsual in numerous ways. First, it was immediately after an election that gave the current gov't a stronger mandate than it had last time. Second, it was at the onset of a recession.

A stronger mandate is utterly meaningless if the House loses confidence in the Government. YOu're confusing electoral notions with Parliamentary notions. Even if the Tories had been one seat shy of a majority, if they lose the confidence of the House, they're gone, and if someone else can make a claim that they can form a government, the GG can ask them to.

The governor general is there to prevent the scenarios you are throwing at us. I know the role is largely symbolic, but there are potential exceptions. If not, what's the point in having her at all?

The biggest mistake of all is considering her role, or the role of any executive in a parliamentary democracy as symbolic. With the exception of Japan and Sweden (where the head of state doesn't have even nominal powers), the executive can wield enormous powers at certain moments (the two major constitutional crises of our system of government in the 20th century are proof of that).

I'm no myata. I believe our system is effective. Despite all the cries over the years that the office of GG is little more than the ultimate patronage position, GG's throughout our history have behaved with dignity, sobriety and with a keen sense of duty. The effective appointment by the PM does pose some potential issues of partisanship, but if it were that great a risk, you'd think by after 143 years it would have shown itself. We have, I think, one of the most stable and effective democratic systems the world has ever made, one that has proven itself not just during Canada's lifetime, but well over three hundred years.

But there has to be some recognition by the politicians, and there long has been, that there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. The GG is not supposed to simply be the PM's pet, but if the GG is constrained from unilateral uses of Royal Prerogative, but the PM feels no such restraint, then things become unbalanced.

Moonbox · February 16, 2010

I'm pretty much done arguing on this thread as we're just going to keep repeating ourselves.

To me it seems that you take particular exception to this because Harper did it and you've made it clear you have issues with him.

As for the precedent that you 'think' has been established, and its potential to derail Canadian democracy, that's based on some bad assumptions. I've listed above how silly I think your scenarios are and I won't bother repeating it again.

I'd be happier to see an end to proroguing altogether as I think it shows blatant contempt for voters, but that's just my opinion.

Smallc · February 16, 2010

I'd be happier to see an end to proroguing altogether as I think it shows blatant contempt for voters, but that's just my opinion.

Then it's quite obvious that you don't understand what it's really for. Ending your session so you can start fresh with a new vision doesn't at all show contempt for voters. Ending your session half way through....well, that might.

KeyStone · February 16, 2010

I expect the same treatment as harper been given and this seems even more for power then anything. lol

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/2010wintergames/McGuinty+prorogues+legislature/2543050/story.html

Proroguing has been done many times, under Liberal and Conservative governments. This is the first time in memory that such an outcry was made. It's really more a reflection of the effectiveness histrionics made by Ignatieff, on a naieve youth, whose rely almost exclusively on social media for their political awareness. Should do well in Vancouver especially.

g_bambino · February 16, 2010

Ending your session so you can start fresh with a new vision doesn't at all show contempt for voters. Ending your session half way through....well, that might.

Stop bashing Harper! And, on that note, stop bashing the opposition as well for failing to hold Harper to account. Such non-partisan opinions are a brazen show of contempt for the single minded party hacks that post here. Shame on you. Now get in line and start mindlessly repeating the mantra of the party of your choosing.

[+]

Edited February 16, 2010 by g_bambino

Smallc · February 16, 2010

stop bashing the opposition as well for failing to hold Harper to account.

Yes, I like Ignaieff's new "letter of ideas" in which he pretty much begs Harper (while no one is listening) to do some things to make him happy. Her Majesties Loyal opposition indeed :lol: .

Moonbox · February 16, 2010

Then it's quite obvious that you don't understand what it's really for. Ending your session so you can start fresh with a new vision doesn't at all show contempt for voters. Ending your session half way through....well, that might.

LOL...So THAT'S what proroguing is for. Now I get it! Thanks Smallc! What would I do without you!?!? :rolleyes:

I'm sure everyone could use an extra month or so of paid time off at the end of the year for some deep soul searching. The rest of us, however, seem to get by without it. Funny that....

Smallc · February 16, 2010

I'm sure everyone could use an extra month or so of paid time off at the end of the year for some deep soul searching. The rest of us, however, seem to get by without it. Funny that....

Well, first, proroguing doesn't require a month off. Second, Parliamentarians don't only work while parliament is in session.

Prorogation is used in multiple nations. In almost every country, there isn't enough legislative business in the country for Parliament to sit all year long. People would be sitting twiddling their thumbs.