Posted on 05/12/2005 6:36:42 AM PDT by GMMAC
Lesson on how not to run a democracy
John Ivison
National Post
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Amadou Toumani Toure, the President of Mali, was in the gallery of the House of Commons yesterday but he can scarcely have learned much about democracy during his visit -- except perhaps, how not to practise it.
You could almost see his eyebrows raising as he was briefed on the current situation. "What's that you say? The opposition parties won a vote calling on the government to resign, but the Prime Minister refused to accept the result. Something similar happened recently in Togo," was perhaps how the conversation went.
If the President was baffled by the way the day unfolded in the House, he was in good company.
Reporters, staffers and MPs spent most of the afternoon wandering through the pillars of the House foyer scouring for sources, as if on a hunt for the string in the Minotaur's labyrinth.
The lather began early when rumours surfaced that the Prime Minister was going to propose a vote of confidence on the budget next week. When Paul Martin emerged from his caucus, he admitted that the government's defeat the previous night demanded the question of confidence be settled. His solution was to propose a vote on the budget next Thursday, allowing him a couple of days enjoying the smell of fresh paint in the company of the Queen during Saskatchewan's centennial celebrations.
It wasn't quite in keeping with the standard constitutional response, whereby, past governments have moved immediately to introduce their own confidence motions to alleviate any confusion. Still, it was an acknowledgement that the government had lost control of its own destiny and it might have been an astute political move for Stephen Harper, the Conservative leader, to emerge from his own caucus meeting across the Hall of Honour and stage a display of Prime Ministerial magnanimity.
But Harper couldn't even pronounce the word, such is his distemper with the government. Until it holds its own confidence vote, the government won't get any co-operation from the Conservatives, he said, a point proven by the absence of Tories from all standing committees that afternoon.
"I'm tired of games and I'm not going to play another week so the Prime Minister can use the Queen as a prop," he said, fangs bared.
He proceeded to move into dangerous territory when he said the Conservatives would not play games for another week "so that he [Martin] can hope the health of some members of Parliament deteriorates".
While the Tory leader might have thought it -- indeed the charge was repeated later by two Conservatives stricken with cancer -- accusing the Prime Minister of wishing ill-health upon fellow parliamentarians was not perhaps the smartest soundbite for someone trying to present himself as the voice of reason.
Maybe the tension is getting to him. After all, the Conservatives and Bloc have the numbers to defeat the government this week but may not next, when Chuck Cadman, the independent MP who may vote with the Liberals, arrives in Ottawa to vote.
In the meantime, the Conservatives set out to show the Liberals who's boss. Late in the afternoon, Harper rose to introduce a motion of adjournment. In a devastating speech, he detailed why he believed the government has lost the "moral authority and democratic legitimacy" to govern. "It's time -- for God's sake go," he said.
A vote in favour of adjournment would have been the fourth bloody nose the government had received in recent days and would, on its own, have led to calls for the government to resign. Conservative spinners were distributing a quote by Eugene Forsey, who argued that at some point, a government that is consistently subject to defeat will be compromised and forced to either resign or ask for dissolution.
But such is the twisted thinking in Ottawa these days, the Liberals opted for disgrace rather than defeat and voted with the Conservatives and Bloc in favour of adjournment, thereby breaking their recent losing streak.
So there you have it -- the Opposition plans to shut down the House on a daily basis to help it win power and the government is intent on assisting them so it can stay there. The President of Mali must be laughing his head off.
© National Post 2005
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