Stormy thoughts, hectic schedule

Loyal readers:

My mind is a stormcloud of cynical thoughts. My Liberal party, it seems, cannot find unity in its opposition status. At every turn, they have allowed themselves to be outfoxed by Stephen Harper, and have, in the face of adversity, allowed petty rivalries, grudges, and outright selfishness to erode their unity and besmirch their public image.

How else can you explain the fact that Jamie Carroll's misguided Quebec/China comment was leaked to the press by members of his own party? Or that John Manley agreed to chair a high-profile panel on Afghanistan, exonerating the Conservatives on one of their only areas of electoral weakness in the process? Or that Jean Chretien, one of our supposed elder-statesman, chose, on what could have been the eve of a federal election, to tear open the recently-stitched wounds of the Chretien/Martin feud , just to suit his book-signing schedule?

My party is in disarray. And my thoughts on this are many.

But, loyal readers, the schedule of my Master's program is keeping me from chronicling my ideas. I find myself with little time to do this blog justice. So for the time being, at least over the month of November, my political commentary will be sparse.

I will of course pick up my blogging responsibilities come December. But for now, postings will only be made when inspiration and leisure time coincide.

Harpers hilarious non-ultimatum

Well, it's official. For those of you who have been sitting on the fence for the past few years, the results are finally in:

Stephen Harper has a sense of humour.

How else could you explain the ridiculous ultimatum he posed to the opposition parties yesterday? From today's Globe and Mail:

While insisting he doesn't want an election, the prime minister said that if opposition parties vote in favour of his throne speech he will consider all future votes on priorities listed in it to be confidence votes as well.

“We're going to ask Parliament for a mandate. Once we have that mandate, we're going to consider that basically gives us the right to consider those matters confidence going forward and to get results and get things done,” Mr. Harper said.

Yep, you read that right. If the throne speech passes, Harper will take this to mean that his government can pass any legislation it likes, and that any dissenting voices will be illegitimate and grounds for an election. The opposition members can just sit quietly and draw while his government unveils proposal after proposal; after all, that's what they were elected for, right? And think how nice it will be to take the pesky "opposition" out of "opposition parties."

And everything will be a no-confidence motion! What fun! The opposition doesn't like the government's legislation on fishing boundaries? Down comes the government! The opposition thinks emissions targets should be higher? We go to the polls! Yessir, this will be a government of tremendous suspense and drama: no nuance, no negotiation, just brinksmanship all the way!

Yep, Harper officially has a sense of humour.

This has got to be unprecedented in Canadian politics. But what it really means is that the Conservatives are dying for an election right now. Who can blame them? The Liberals seem more concerned about petty infighting and who-said-what than they do about preparing for a national campaign.

So Harper is trying to embarass the opposition into voting against his throne speech, and has also signalled that "he wouldn't be satisfying all their demands to change his political agenda."

So that's it. I don't see how we can avoid an election anymore.