Filibuster CartoonsTitle: Lousy gifts (click to view)
Date: January 2, 2009
Hello all, I'm back.
So, a lot of stuff has happened, or perhaps properly
not happened, in Canada over the last month.
- Stephane Dion's little coup did
not pan out, and the Governor General did not make him prime minister. She instead did what
current Prime Minister Harper told her to do, and suspended parliament for two months. It is set to reopen on January 21, and the opposition parties will probably try to non-confidence vote Harper out of power once again.
- Stephane Dion, similarly, is now not even leader of the Liberal Party. After the overthrow of Harper failed, he was unceremoniously pushed into an even earlier retirement. A backroom deal was then hatched, and Michael Ignatieff became leader of the party following an emergency vote of the Liberal caucus. Thus the mystery of who would become the next leader of the Libs was rather undemocratically resolved. There will still be a party convention to formally nominate him, but his rivals have suddenly agreed to endorse him, so it's really just going to be a re-coronation.
- Out of seemingly nowhere, though likely a result of his being spooked by the attempted overthrow, Prime Minister Harper appointed an astonishing 18 senators to the Canadian Senate in one day. This was a dramatic turnaround for the PM, who has spent much of his political career calling for an elected Senate, and has consistently avoided appointed senators during his two years as prime minister. But now, all that has apparently changed, with the man suddenly making noises about how in this period of political instability he needs the upper house firmly on his side.
So yes, some interesting things in Canada. Interesting, not good.
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