They Actually Care About the Country (and/or Quebec!)

Blogging Tories, who lack any sort of ability for introspection, intellectual consistency, honour, or brain cells, are now in high dudgeon about the "coup" that's been months or even years in the making on the part of the opposition party. Out-of-the-blue it seems, they've just decided to make a grab for power using machiavellian "back-room deals" to thwart the will of the Canadian electorate.

1. Blogging Tories are all idiots, assholes, hypocrites and etc. so we're not really trying to justify ourselves to them. We're just having fun.

2. Coalitions are a feature of multi-party parliamentary systems. To call accepted political practice a "coup" is both illegitimate and childish.

3. Mere days ago the Blogging Tories were bragging about how they'd provoked the opposition with their elimination of public subsidies, in order to draw them out and prove to Canadians that they were only fighting to hold on to their entitlements. The argument was that the anti-stimulus package would stay and the opposition wouldn't put up a fight over that, thus showing that they're motivated by nothing but self-interest.

Since that brilliant scheme blew up in their faces (if it ever in fact existed at all), the coalition is now being presented as a long-standing scheme, which supposedly was in the works throughout the last parliament when the Liberals were hiding from the House of Commons on every important vote to try to avoid an election.

Once again; the brilliant scheme to provoke the opposition into challenging the government has been consigned to the memory-hole and now this proposed coalition arose from nowhere but a mad lust for power.

4. Stephen Harper signed on to the exact same sort of "back-room deal" to propose a "coup" in 2004 against Paul Martin's minority Liberals.

What's motivating the opposition. Both anger, and concern for the country. I'll confess to something here. Even Liberals care about the country. In a pro-corporate, empty-words, "gee-whiz, why can't we have 'flexible labour-markets' and good, steady jobs for everyone while capitalism goes untaxed and unregulated" kinda way. I believe that even CPC MPs believe in stuff. For the most part, ugly and stupid stuff, but there's a belief system there nonetheless. I believe that Flaherty thinks his anti-stimulus plan is what's needed, but I've said a zillion times that Flaherty is an absolute moron.

I think the opposition is generally nauseated with Harper's ugly, Rovian tactics AND they realize that Flaherty's idiotic "economic statement" is the last thing this country needs.

I was taken with "North of 49"'s comment on "Dymaxion World":

My take is that the Liberals, NDP and Bloc were galvanized into action initially by that last bit, but once they got looking at the economic update what they saw appalled them -- no stimulus, and Flaherty, the oh-so-trustworthy former Ontario deficit-hiding finance minister, claiming no deficit this time too. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that the Coalition partners actually care about Canada and Canadians, as they say they do, and want to take the reins of power because they foresee PM Harper and FM Flaherty's approach as a disaster.

Or if that's too improbable, consider that most of their constituents live in either Ontario or Quebec, and they see PM Harper's non-plan as likely to hurt the very people who voted for them. (Duceppe fits this model too: consider what he is asking for -- help for forestry and manufacturing, and some social-equality stuff -- all things that matter to his constituents.) So one could argue that they all are simply looking out for their base(es).

Another thing. When Harper said that this new Parliament was going to be a more cooperative forum than in the past two years, in light of the economic crisis, I believe the Opposition parties took that intention at face value -- but waited for proof. They didn't get it, did they? Harper just couldn't resist the chance to play the same crass and cynical partisan political games he's been playing all along. He dropped the only real ball that matters right now, the health of the country's economy, and picked up -- again! -- the political opportunity ball. He broke his word -- again.

The Opposition parties, I believe, were willing to give him a chance to actually lead, and he blew it. So they're going to try to shove him aside and get on with governing, and more power to them.