Rules are for other parties

... especially our own rules.

Fixed election dates? Sure, we campaigned on 'em and pushed 'em through. But we can still call an election a year early.

Elected senators? Maybe next time.

Parliamentary review for Supreme Court appointments? It's not like we have a Parliament anyway, so nyah nyah nyah.

Seriously. How can you re-elect these people?

Second time's the charm?

Here: MacKay sees risks in U.S. plan to arm tribal militias [in Afghanistan].

Isn't this the most delightfully and tragically ironic plan? In the 80s the USSR armed the Afghan national army to take care of the mujahideen. The U.S. armed the mujahideen, who overthrew the Soviet-supported government, and are now the new government, and the insurgents, and the tribal militias. So let's arm them some more, because it worked out really well last time.

The Framing of Michael Ignatieff

Just short of two years ago, Stéphane Dion was chosen as the new leader of the Liberal Party. Outside of Quebec, many people hadn't heard of him until then and didn't know anything about him. The Conservative Party was thinking ahead; this man would be their biggest competitor in the next federal election, and they had an opportunity. Enter the frame.

The first major piece of media about the man himself was the slogan: "Stéphane Dion is not a leader." Twenty months later an election was called, and Dion's biggest problem was the public's perception that he is not a leader. If there's one thing for which you have to respect the Conservatives, it's their tactical acumen.

Now, finally, Dion's first mistake has taken its course and he's stepped down to make room for Michael Ignatieff. What have we heard about the latter? He went to Harvard, he spent a lot of time in the USA, and he used to support the Iraq war. In Conservative-speak that will be, "He's an ivory tower elite, out of touch with ordinary Canadians, and he flip-flops on the issues." I hope that he won't make the same mistake as Dion; the race is on to see who can frame Ignatieff first and best.

Clearly, he's well aware of the above. The Globe and Mail reports:

Mr. Ignatieff's response to the prospect of the Conservatives quickly launching attack ads against him was further evidence of his ability - as Mr. Harper once boasted - to take a punch. Rather than bleat about Conservative mean-spiritedness, he all but dared his opponents to take aim at him. "The least I can say is that we are in a situation of parliamentary crisis," Mr. Ignatieff said. "It would seem to me a very serious mistake to engage in partisan attacks against the party leader at this moment. I hope I make myself clear."

Way to kick things off, Iggy. Not only is he daring them to try it, he's framing himself in the process as a man who's not to be trifled with, just the sort of thing that might have saved Dion early on. This is the hard edge that the public needs to see. Now give us more.

Prorogued

Everybody* knows by now that Parliament has been prorogued until mid-January, thereby sparing Harper from tomorrow's confidence motion.

At first I was going to write something about how I disagreed with the Governor General's decision. If her discretion in the matter exists for any non-ceremonial purposes at all, then surely those include preventing the Prime Minister from evading confidence motions? And is the spirit of all these rules not to ensure that whoever holds that title has the confidence of the house?

As I did my best to consider the opposing arguments, though, I really couldn't think of a good rebuttal to this one: Parliament will resume in less than two months, and if the opposition's coalition can't hang together that long then they shouldn't be governing the country. Certainly there is a cost; we lack a proper government when we really need it, but I think that one way or another we'll be better off afterward.

If the coalition holds together, we'll at least know that they can offer some stability, and we'll have a government that balances the interests of a majority of the electorate. If it disintegrates, we'll have Conservatives who know that they can't get away with the sort of machinations seen in last week's economic update, and most likely will have to behave like a minority government for the first time since coming into power.

Another possible side-effect is that the Liberal Party finds a new leader in time to take up the reins. A recent poll in my local paper concluded that a strong majority of Canadians are against having Stéphane Dion as their Prime Minister, even in the Liberal stronghold of Ontario. Personally I'm more tolerant of him than most (are the people who claim that "Stéphane Dion is not a leader" aware that they're just regurgitating the punchline of a two-year-old Conservative attack ad?), but when centre-left voters are unwilling to support a centre-left coalition, you know there's a serious problem. The best possible outcome, which is admittedly a lot to ask in a short time, is that by January we have a coalition with the support of the majority of Canadians.

I close with an example of Peter MacKay's magnificent powers of reason:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay defended the Conservative leader's move, saying the Governor General was "duty bound" by precedent and parliamentary procedure to accept Harper's prorogation request.

...

"This is certainly an unprecedented situation that we saw unfold."

She's duty bound by precedent in this unprecedented situation? Riiiight.

* Or at least, every one of the three of the people who might read this.