Illegitimate Government in Canada: Day II

Here's a great post about last evening's non-non-confidence debacle, in the context of Canadian Parliamentary tradition, courtesy of Prof. Andrew Heard of Simon Fraser University (via Farquhar).

This gem justifying the illegitimate government's antics comes from shameless Liberal youth hack and spinmeister Jason Cherniak, whose site is better known as a digest of recycled Martinite speaking notes than a source of objectively insightful commentary. Some highlights (in italics):

"It was not technically a vote of non-confidence and the government has a right to ignore it, but they shouldn't because, clearly, the House wants an election."

No, Jason, what the motion clearly indicated was that the majority of the members of the House demanded the resignation of the government, which was both the express and implied intent of yesterday's motion.

The original confidence motion was scheduled for May 18 and if the Tories were playing fair they would not have tried to hold a vote while Cadman was unable to attend due to CHEMOTHERAPY! Talk about disgusting political tricks.

Since when does the Prime Minister get to decide when the House can express its confidence or lack thereof in the government? When Mike Pearson lost a supply vote on account of absent members in the late 1960s, he immediately called for and won a confidence motion. Why won't the Prime Minister commit to calling one given last night's expression of parliamentary intent?

...At this point in time, Martin's government has not lost one important legislative vote. Not one!

Yeah, but what important piece of legislation has been passed since the paralysis of parliament? Further, it's irrelevant that, oh, months ago the Liberals had the confidence of the House (ie. through the passing of the Speech from the Throne). Confidence motions arise because Parliament no longer has confidence in the government--they don't arise merely as an expression of what was always the case.

...The question is not whether the House wants an election - the question is whether the PM is able to get a legislative agenda through the House.

Then why has the government been FILIBUSTERING its own budget? They had the ability to ram the budget through the House right after the Grit-NDP New Deal but decided not to. Perhaps this is because they can't guarantee that they can pass the budget, or, more appropriately, don't have the confidence of the House?

...The goal of government is to improve the lives of Canadians. The government has a duty to get through as much positive legislation as possible. There is still the marijuana and equal marriage legislation, for example. Both of those would pass if introduced tomorrow. Does the government not have a duty to try to get those bills passed before an election happens?

Using that logic, any government in the same situation as the present one can simply point to the order paper and say--"Hey, Parliament! You can't lose faith or confidence in us! We have important work to do!" That same flippant attitude is prevalent in such bastions of democracy as Zimbabwe ("Opposition! You can't win this election! We still haven't completed our land reform/theft programme!") or Iran ("we simply cannot have these reform-minded candidates running for Parliament--they'll prevent us from implementing our theocratic agenda!")

Until Harper can prove that governing is impossible for the government, he has no real case to claim that there is no confidence.

Better put, maybe it's time for the Prime Minister to regenerate the gonads he used to possess in the mid-1990s and call a motion of confidence if he really believes in the importance of his agenda and wants to see it fulfilled.

Martin apologists like the PMO and Cherniak may want to ignore 150 years of parliamentary convention and sacrifice it on the altar of desperate political expedience. But the lame attempt at spinning away a clear expression of the Commons' lack of confidence in the administration has the effect of discrediting the present government far more than the sum of all of the corruption allegations bleeding from the witness stand in Judge Gomery's courtroom.

While I'm not particularly saddened at that, this discrediting of the Martin government has come at the expense of destroying what little faith Canadians have in their political institutions, and has resulted in the death of responsible government. That, friends, is what is truly lamentable about this debacle. Perhaps that, and the spectacle of Paul Martin Sr. rolling over in his grave.