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Canadian leader provokes anger by closing Parliament
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/05/america/canada.php

By Ian Austen
Friday, December 5, 2008

OTTAWA: Canada's parliamentary opposition reacted with outrage after Prime Minister Stephen Harper shut down the Legislature until Jan. 26, seeking to forestall a no-confidence vote that he was sure to lose and that might have provoked a constitutional crisis.

Harper acted Thursday after getting the approval of Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who represents Queen Elizabeth as the nation's head of state. If his request had been rejected, he would have had to choose between stepping down or facing the no-confidence vote on Monday.

The opposition fiercely criticized the decision to suspend Parliament, accusing Harper of undermining the nation's democracy.

"We have to say to Canadians, is this the kind of government you want?" said Bob Rae, a member of the opposition Liberal Party. "Do we want a party in place that is so undemocratic that it will not meet the House of Commons?"

That sentiment was echoed by constitutional scholars, who lamented that the governor general might have created a mechanism that future prime ministers could use to bypass the legislature when it seemed convenient.

"This really has been a blow to parliamentary democracy in Canada," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. "It has lowered the status of the elected Parliament and raised the status of the unelected prime minister."

Thursday's events had their origins in a hotly contested election that Harper's Conservative Party won less than two months ago without achieving a majority, leaving it vulnerable to challenge. In light of that and the growing economic turmoil, Harper pledged to work closely with the opposition in Parliament.

But when he presented a proposed budget last week it had none of the stimulus programs that the opposition had sought to help Canada's sagging economy. The final insult for the main opposition parties, the New Democrats and the Liberals, was a provision that would eliminate public financing for political parties. They considered it a deliberate slap because Harper's Conservative Party is currently far better financed than they are.

With that, they began scrambling to put together a coalition with the backing of the separatist Bloc Québécois to displace Harper's government.

Harper said he suspended Parliament to allow time to put together a budget that he will introduce in January, and once again spoke in conciliatory terms, inviting the opposition to participate in the drafting. "Today's decision will give us an opportunity - and I'm talking about all the parties - to focus on the economy and work together."

But Stéphane Dion, who leads the Liberals and who would become the coalition's prime minister, dismissed the idea of working with Harper and said the Conservatives' budget was unlikely to satisfy the opposition's economic demands.

"We do not want any more of his words; we don't believe them," Dion told reporters before the closed doors of the House of Commons.

"We want to see changes, monumental changes."

Opposition leaders said they would continue to try to form a new coalition, and strongly criticized Harper's attempt to thwart them.

"He's put a lock on the door on the House of Commons," Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democrats, told reporters. "He refuses to face the people of Canada through their elected representatives." The past several days have been filled with political turmoil, as the Liberals and New Democrats worked together on a plan to form a coalition, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, to replace Harper's Conservative-led government. Such a turn would also be unprecedented in Canadian politics.

The news of the parliamentary suspension came after a two-and-a-half hour long meeting in Ottawa between Harper and Jean, the governor general. Harper, speaking to reporters during snow flurries outside of Rideau Hall, the governor general's official residence, said: "The public is very frustrated by the current situation in Parliament and we are all responsible for it."

In contrast to the relative indifference to the elections two months ago, the current situation has provoked a passionate debate in the country online, in public and through radio call-in shows.

The issue has also inflamed old regional tensions. In Western Canada, the main base of support for the Conservatives, political commentators are arguing that the coalition is an attempt by more populous Ontario and Quebec to deny political influence to the West.

At the same time, many Quebecers, particularly French speakers, have been offended by Conservative suggestions that they have no interest in remaining a part of Canada. In the House of Commons, where debate is not always temperate, the political rhetoric has been particularly heated.

Some Conservative members are suggesting that the coalition members are near-traitors. "That is as close to treason and sedition as I can imagine," Bob Dechert, a Conservative member said on Wednesday, echoing a refrain widely heard from callers to radio programs in Harper's home province of Alberta.

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Canada’s Prime Minister Wins Nod to Close Parliament; Averts Crisis ‘For Now’
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=40316

Friday, December 05, 2008
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor

(CNSNews.com) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won approval Thursday from Canada’s governor general to suspend the Canadian Parliament until January – averting for the moment a constitutional crisis that could have led to rebellious opposition parties forming their own coalition and taking power into their own hands to topple his government.

Harper told reporters that Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean, the representative to British monarch Queen Elizabeth II, agreed to his request to close Parliament until Jan. 26.

Experts on Canadian government say the crisis was caused because the prime minister tried to privatize public financing of political parties.

On Wednesday night, Harper told Canadians in a televised address that the opposition parties had engaged in a “back-room deal” to cause his government to fail – even though Canadians overwhelmingly gave Conservative Party candidates a near majority in elections held just two months ago.

Wore, the opposition coalition would give power to Quebec separatists, who want to remove French-speaking Quebec from the rest of Canada.

"The opposition does not have the democratic right to impose a coalition with the separatists they promised voters would never happen," Harper said. "The opposition is attempting to impose this deal without your say, without your consent, and without your vote."

Harper's government had been scheduled to face a “No confidence” vote on Monday, Dec. 8, but that has been placed on hold until he can “table” – or present -- a budget in January that will address Canada’s difficult economy.

Canada’s Liberal Party had joined with the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois to form a coalition to undermine Harper’s government. The Bloc Quebecois is the official Quebec separatist party.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion had predicted Wednesday night that closing the nation’s legislature would only “delay the inevitable.”

"If Mr. Harper wants to suspend Parliament he must face a vote of confidence," Dion said in an address.

"The Harper Conservatives have lost the confidence of the majority of members of the House of Commons. In our democracy, in our parliamentary system, in our constitution this means that they have lost the right to govern," he added.

But Stephen Scott, an emeritus professor of law at McGill University in Montreal, told CNSNews.com that the unprecedented crisis in Canada didn’t come about because Canadians were tired of the Tories – it came about because Harper decided to get rid of public financing of political parties.

Unlike in the U.S., campaign money from labor unions and corporations was banned in 2003 under Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Scott said, and public money was substituted. Harper proposed ending the hand-out of public funding to political parties.

“Since the Conservatives do have a good fund-raising machine but the other parties get about two-thirds of their money from the public sector – from public financing -- this was going to bankrupt the other parties,” he added.

“So what Harper did was move from a position where no one would have believed he could be defeated in the House, with 143 seats (out of 308), into a situation where he put the knife to everybody’s throat and was threatening to bankrupt them.”

The Hon. Jim Hnatiuk, leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada, told CNSNews.com that Harper had “gone a bit too far” – but predicted the Liberal-Bloc Quebecois-New Democrat coalition could fall apart soon.

Hnatiuk said there are plenty of Canadians who feel that the Quebec separatist party shouldn’t be allowed into the House of Commons at all.

“There is some hope, if the coalition cracks between now and January, that this whole thing (ouster attempt) will fail, that it will crumble,” Hnatiuk said.

The government will have to present the nation’s budget on Jan. 27, and Harper called on the opposition to work with his administration to help the country’s ailing economy.

In the Canadian system, the leader of the party with the most members in Parliament gets an opportunity to form a government – and must frequently form coalitions with other parties to have enough votes to form a majority.

Under the Canadian constitution, McGill’s Scott said, if a sitting government loses a no-confidence vote – or loses its majority -- opposition parties must be formally invited by the governor general to try to form a government.

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Rallies held across Canada amid Parliament conflicts
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/07/content_10466947.htm

OTTAWA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Rallies were held across Canada on Saturday by supporters of the conflicting parties of the Parliament, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government escaped an opposition plan to topple it.

Governor General Michaelle Jean approved Harper's request to prorogue the Parliament on Thursday, allowing the government to sidestep a non-confidence vote scheduled for Monday, which would lead to its downfall.

The three oppositions have agreed to form a Liberal-NDP coalition government, supported by Bloc Quebecois, to replace the Conservatives, which they say have lost the confidence of the Parliament.

Rallies were held on Saturday in major cities by supporters of both sides, with leaders of the Liberal and New Democratic Party (NDP) slamming Harper for proroguing the Parliament in the biggest city Toronto, and thousands of others gathering in the capital Ottawa to speak against the coalition.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, who would be the prime minister if the Liberal-NDP coalition came into power, told the pro-coalition crowd at Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square that Canada is in urgent need of a plan to help the country's economy.

"We want to help our country to fight the economic crisis that is coming, and for that we need to pull together," he said.

He also said Prime Minister Harper had "wasted time on partisan games and locked the doors of Parliament."

NDP Leader Jack Layton followed Dion to address the crowd, saying that the prime minister had put "a padlock on Parliament Hill" and was "desperately clinging to power."

"By closing down Parliament, he has silenced your voice," Layton said. "He has turned his back on the economy and on the people who are being thrown out of work."

Canadians for Democracy, the organization behind 20 protests against the coalition, accuses the NDP and Liberals of getting into bed with separatists, and warns that the threat of a coalition taking power will resume once the Parliament returns on Jan. 26.

The Canadian Labor Congress (CLC), which supports the coalition, held rallies in Toronto, Montreal and Sudbury, Ontario.

A radio ad that appeared on the CLC website slammed Harper's inability to work with the opposition parties to devise solutions for the sluggish economy.

"During the election, Stephen Harper told us he would make a minority Parliament work and put our economy first. He has failed," it says.

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