Dismantling (this) Parliament

In one feckless swoop, dissolving the goodwill he so assiduously and carefully built in the minds of the electorate during his first minority government. The enormity of the gamble, that he could be so utterly oblivious, so incapable of imagining the immediate response to his succumbing to the pettiness of divisiveness at a time when he should have been working more strenuously than even before to achieve some working level of co-operation between the various political parties in this 40th Parliament.

Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada, we are discussing your absurd, unworthy move to irritate your political opponents beyond their endurance...!

What did he think, that the increased minority equalled the full confidence of a majority vote of the electorate? Still feeling their way about what he represents, and prepared to give him another term as a minority leader until such time as he successfully dispelled their suspicion? And now, this. The total collapse - or as near total as possible, given the situation he has single-handedly placed himself in - of voter confidence in the good sense of a prime minister who would so carelessly risk everything he has struggled to achieve.

It was unaccountably heedless, careless, a prime example of unearned confidence. Unearned to that extent that he stretched it, handily creating the opportunity his opponents could only dream of. And what a time to indulge in petty party politics. When the country most needs the reassurance of its stability at a time when world markets are crumbling, and we're not entirely certain, given the on-again, off-again assurances of our own government. Idiotic, nothing less. Put it down to stress, overwork, whatever you like, that laxity of care has proven to be extremely costly.

No doubt causing enough agony in the Conservative ranks, let alone the Cabinet. A recently re-installed prime minister a trifle too confident, not quite as intrepidly knowledgeable as he would have us believe - as we have been quite prepared - given the past two-plus years of his carefully manoeuvered minority government, has prepared us to believe. All of it trashed, by one careless gesture, a clumsy one at that, at such a critical time. Not alert to the damage such a mis-step could cause, the self-afflicted wound bleeding electorate confidence he might not be capable of staunching?

Having said which, it still behooves us to honour our voting commitment, the recently concluded election where more than enough Canadians voted to continue the Conservative-led government. Truth to tell, that government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, stood us in very good stead. He gained our goodwill, our confidence in his capabilities by his thoughtful and careful and valuable initiatives on our behalf in many areas of concern. Now - one errs, and one backtracks of necessity to regroup, and that is precisely what has occurred.

It would represent a breach of democracy for the Opposition parties to step up with a hastily-bargained coalition for the express purpose of ousting this government on a vote of non-confidence, under the outraged guise of concern for the well-being of the country. By their vociferous denunciations, fairly well unfounded in fact, they doth protest too much. The combined expertise of the Opposition still lacks the support of the electorate, unconvinced that they are capable of leading us well and truly.

We the people have voted, and this trumped-up outrage of vehement accusations leading to self-righteous claims to entitlements that are undeserving and stand to summarily obliterate the democratic process that was undertaken a mere month and little more earlier isn't to be countenanced. This country's voters did not elect a Liberal government, not yet one in close collaboration with two other parties. What an utterly absurd, yet dreadful upset in the country's body politic. We have no reason to believe that the Liberals and NDP are capable of working well together; they're dysfunctional internally, let alone in collaboration.

Yet if the Opposition remains wedded to the trajectory they've undertaken, to unseat the government and split the administration of the country between the Liberals and the NDP, with the support of a separatist party bargaining hard for additional concessions, in an effort to further their advancement toward separation, they're sadly mistaken, betraying their own unspeakable hubris in their self-availing move so disrespectful of the democratic process.

The Liberal party is functionally leaderless, its finances are in perilous condition, its politics in disarray. Their infighting and bitterness toward one another has become legendary. The two leading leadership contenders are bitterly adversarial. The New Democratic Party has the misfortune of having the wrong leader at the wrong time, ready to lead the country into the morass of misspent funding at a critical time when we're hovering between financial insecurity and a relatively and hoped-for swift recovery.

This government, now being challenged by a ravening pack of Harper-haters, has taken cautious and well-thought-out initial steps to ensure fiscal stability, and is prepared to launch an additional series of economic measures - should they prove to be necessary - in the near future. The Opposition is attempting to instill a sense of panic in the electorate, painting the Conservative government as incapable of measuring and coping with a mild recession.

They complain of a lack of stimulus in the fiscal update just tabled by the finance minister. One shudders at the potential for wreckage of the country's economy should Stephane Dion take the helm of government, however temporarily, with Jack Layton sitting in as finance minister. The alternative, to take the country through another election process at the cost of $500-million, when we've just completed that very process, is unthinkable.

And then there's this little thought: how must we appear to the outside world looking in at what's occurring here. Scratching their collective heads in bemusement at the infantile antics of elected lawmakers, in a wealthy, educated, socially-adjusted country that has the advantage that our national peers envy, of financial stability. How can they take this country seriously, when we cannot seem to behave in a manner to be taken seriously?

We present as a peculiar Western counterpart to what is now occurring in Thailand, where a sizeable faction of Thais are embarking on a potentially violent campaign to unseat their government, claiming, although it's newly-elected, that it is only continuing the policies of the predecessor government. The unrest and violence there looks awfully like a situation that could lead to civil political war.

One can only hope that cooler heads will prevail here in Canada, that the hysteria of political bloody-mindedness will dissipate, that those parliamentarians that we have elected in good faith to lead the country through a crisis gripping the international world of finance, will cast off this attempted putsch, reclaim the maturity of their years and experience, and co-operate with a justly chastened government.

Much depends upon it.