When I first heard that Mr Harper decided to suspend Parliament for two whole months, I was not amused. I was even less amused when I heard his interview (on CTV - if I remember well) where he said "the Canadian public doesn't really care, anyway". Huh...? He even cited the Winter Olympics as an excuse. Hmmm...really? To me this long "vacation" says something else. It says that the Conservatives are jittery about something and need time to sort things out without the annoyance of having to deal with the opposition.
This whole thing reminds me very much of last year's prorogue, which was actually only one month long, but which was surrounded by a cloud of quite nasty TV ads attacking Mr Ignatieff, even though the idea of an election was only a vague possibility. Yet, even though a lot of Canadians found those ads disgusting and made them weary of Conservative political tactics, it did prove to be effective in hoodwinking a large enough part of the rest of the electorate to make the party actually rise in the polls. A fact that proves the power of media and the political shallowness of the general public. (Sad, but true...)
Today I became aware of the editorial in The Economist, and it made me embarrassed... The Economist is a British magazine with a large international readership. In their editorial of the latest print edition they harshly criticize our prime minister. They point out that such a long recess will mean that "all government bills will die, no matter how close they are to approval"; and that Mr Harper apparently thinks that this extra break "would not bother Canadians much". Well, it does bother a good many of us! One of my sons goes as far as calling Mr Harper a "dictator", and he very much supports the letter signed by 132 political scientists in which they are calling for an electoral reform. Apparently "finance Minister Jim Flaherty and others in cabinet will be 'meeting with and hearing from Canadian families, homeowners, workers, business-owners and industries from across the country.'" My family and I would be delighted if called upon!
Up to now Canadian prime ministers always asked the governor general (the Queen's representative in Canada) to be allowed to prorogue Parliament, and did so only after all unfinished business was dealt with. This time there were a whole bunch of bills still on the table, these will have to be re-introduced, all committees will get disbanded, a lot of effort will be wasted. The question arises: is this all because of the issue of the Afghan detainees? That does not seem to be such a hefty threat to the government as last year's situation, when Mr Harper clearly used his powers to dodge a confidence vote which could have triggered a new election. So what is behind this prorogation, then? For one thing we know that the Conservatives are planning to appoint a good number of Conservative senators, something that could not be done without Parliament's approval if it was in session, but can be done now. I wonder what else is up Mr Harper's sleeves...?
The conservatives cited several previous long historic prorogations, but I can imagine that in earlier times winter conditions were harsh enough to interfere with travels of MPs to and from Ottawa, thus interfering with proper functioning of Parliament and making long winter breaks almost necessary. Not that some prime ministers couldn't have ulterior motives, I am sure. But Mr Harper's political frolics are becoming too obvious. AND dangerous! We cannot create such precedence which would allow future prime ministers to suspend Parliament at any which whim. We, the Canadian public, have to let our prime minister know that we are not "complacent". Demographics are changing, the number of ice-hockey fans are not as numerous and not as fanatically devoted as Mr Harper is hoping for. We do pay attention, specially when issues start taking up international proportions. If the turn of events will necessitate a political "revolution", we are ready to ignore the Olympics in favour of straightening out our country's governmental meanderings.
