Back in the semi-drunk, food-coma before New Year’s Day, our esteemed Prime Minister, Stephen “Steve” Harper decided to prorogue Parliament. He wrote up a note from himself excusing the government from school until March 3rd, drove across the street from 24 Sussex Drive and dropped the note off with the Governor General, Michael Jean. In with the unopened Christmas cards and hidden in the preparations for the New Year’s Levee, someone slipped the note from Stevie for Her Excellency’s signature.
Now, I’m not going to suggest our Governor General wasn’t paying attention, but hey, it’s the day before New Year’s Eve and everyone with a lick of sense has the mental cruise control engaged in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. That would include our G-G in that category, so she signed it.
What a prorogue is, in a parliamentary democracy for those who were sleeping in Civics class, is a break. It shuts down the previous session, s-cans the previous bills and puts a happy bow on business. Recess is a reasonable analogy, except that rather than coming back in from recess and resuming the six-times multiplication tables, it’s a recess that ends the school year. Go outside, play some four-square, hockey cards or marbles, come back in and holy crap, it’s the first day of Grade 4 with Miss Welch as your new teacher talking about Uganda in Social Studies.
Stevie figured that taking the heat in Parliament for Afghanistan, the Economy, Jobs, a bottomless deficit and his generally hurtful vindictive demeanor would be a daily bummer on the news. So, instead of taking the heat, standing in his Place as an elected representative of the people, our Prime Minister decided to be true to his form of micromanaging bully and take the dickless coward route: He wrote up a note, asking to be let out of school until March 3rd and to not have to do his homework either.
To keep this in perspective, let’s say you take the same route with your credit card company. Write up a note saying you’re proroguing your payments to Visa for January and February and will resume giving a damn about them around March 3rd, 2010 and Visa can’t charge you interest, as you’re going to the Olympics. After the laughter subsides, Visa will send over someone to knock some sense into you with a ball-peen hammer upside your head.
Unfortunately the problems with our Economy, Jobs, Afghanistan, the Deficit and now Aid to Haiti never got the memo from Stevie with the Get Out Of School card.
This also means the collection of lame, halt and closed-head injured that compromise Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, can’t ask questions in Parliament, holding the PM and his groupthink meat puppets to some kind of standard of vague participatory parliamentary democracy.
There is no accountability. We now have an Emperor ruling by fiat, pronouncement and Order in Council.
RoadDave 