What a Difference a Few Months Make

Last year then Liberal leader Stephane Dion took some very bold steps to remove Stephen Harper and his Conservatives from power. Mr. Dion with great fanfare held a media conference where he and the leader of the Bloc Quebecois along with the leader of the New Democratic Party signed an accord to defeat the Conservatives. The accord would have created a Liberal-NDP coalition government supported by the Bloc, but with no Bloc members as part of the government.

The accord included the following:

• Stéphane Dion will be prime minister until May 2, 2009, when a new Liberal leader is chosen. The new Liberal leader will then become PM.
• The Liberal Party and NDP will sit together as a coalition government until June 30, 2011.
• The Bloc will support the new government until June 30, 2010, with an option to renew their support at that time. They will not be part of the government, and will not hold any seats in cabinet. The Bloc’s support is based on economic concerns, not the issue of Québec independence.
• The cabinet will consist of twenty-four members, plus the prime minister. Sixteen ministers will be Liberals, six will be New Democrats.
• The deputy prime minister and finance minister will be Liberals.

Prime Minister Harper and his Conservatives went to work!!

Harper said "the highest principle" of Canadian democracy was to have a mandate to govern via an election. He went on to say anything less was a "betrayal" of our democracy. Boy, pretty strong words. But anyway, Harper and the Conservatives were just warming up.

Time and again Harper accused the Liberals of creating an alliance with the "separatists". And he accused the Liberals of trying to win power "through the back door". Referring to the NDP as "socialists" was about the nicest thing the Prime Minister said.

After a nation wide campaign to vilify the Liberals, Prime Minister Harper realized he was going to be defeated anyway, and took the extraordinary step of asking  the Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, to close down Parliament, in order to avoid a vote. This is truly breathtaking! Parliament had been in session for only 2 weeks. But it happened. Parliament was prorogued or closed, the Harper government survived, Mr. Dion resigned, and the rest is history.

Yet today on Friday, September 18, 2009, there will be a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons. The Liberals will vote to defeat Prime Minister Harper. The "separatist" Bloc Quebecois and "socialist" NDP will vote to keep Harper and the Conservatives in office. I guess we are supposed to believe that there have been no backroom deals between the Conservatives, the "separatists" and the "socialists"...

You can't make this stuff up.