PM seeks Parliament shutdown till March 2010

[zipperhead_cop]

Elizabeth Marshall, a Newfoundland MHA

Heh, that made me chuckle.  Down here, people who have mental disorders are referred to as MHA's.  That is the acronym for the Mental Health Act. 

 

[a_majoor]

As if we need proof:

http://chasingapplepie.blogspot.com/2010/02/perogy-media-bias.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChasingApplePie+%28Chasing+Apple+Pie%29

Perogy Media Bias

It's now obvious the media has been biased as far as the perogy issue goes.
Marilyn Baker,Winnipeg Free Press did a comparison of Harper's prorogation and the one in 2003 by Jean Chretien. The perogies in the past were yawners, this one suddenly a crisis.

    "Given this perfect opportunity, I decided to test my left-wing, anti-government-bias-in-the-mainstream-media theory.

    My method involved searching for the word "prorogue" (and its derivatives) in all the main media outlets in Canada on specific dates. The results are astounding. They overwhelmingly support my hypothesis.

    Take 2003, for example. During the year, there were 84 articles that referred to "prorogue."

    That was the year that Jean Chrétien prorogued Parliament for two months in mid-November. Speculation had it that he did so to avoid having to sit alongside Paul Martin in the House of Commons, since Martin was to be acclaimed new party leader in November. And of course it's possible that he wanted to avoid taking the increasing flak from the sponsorship scandal. Also, the 84 articles included several references to Ontario's legislature, which also was prorogued in 2003.

    Now let's look at 2010. In the month of January, there were 242 articles about prorogation in our mainstream media.

    From Jan. 1 to 26, the Globe and Mail published 34 separate articles on prorogation in its print edition. (Think Douglas firs.) I didn't bother to count the number of online articles, which would include their perpetually outraged bloggers.

    On Jan. 31, the entire two hours of CBC radio's Cross Country Checkup was given over to prorogation. CBC's The House also dealt at length with it.

    Speaking of CBC's The House, on Jan. 23 it featured Iggy's sidekick, Bob Rae, singing Just Prorogue to the Beatles tune, Let It Be. But don't worry if you missed it. You can also catch him on the Maclean's website. Rae is quoted as saying that Stephen Harper "made a terrible decision."

    He should know. During his brief stint as Ontario premier, he prorogued the Ontario legislature three times, for four months at a whack.

    On Jan. 13, Tom Walkom of the Toronto Star called it a crisis of governance. There were 33 prorogue references in the month of January in the Toronto Star.

    To his credit, Walkom also mentions the 2003 Chrétien prorogue, and admits that the PM did it for political reasons. He writes that "Curiously, even though his (Chrétien's) motive was seen to be as self-serving as Harper's, Chrétien's actions caused much less uproar."

    Curious indeed. Hello? Nobody was alerted to any crisis of governance or democratic deficit or constitutional crisis in 2003. It was merely reported as an adjournment of Parliament.

    Wait, I lie. There was one article. The 2003 shutting of Parliament for two months was decried as "unacceptable to hardworking Canadians!" by an MP, Betty Hinton, from Kamloops. Her statement was reported in the Kamloops Daily News. Once.

    The other day in discussing this matter with a golfing buddy, a rock solid Liberal, I pointed out that Chrétien had prorogued Parliament four times and that Pierre Trudeau had prorogued Parliament eight times.

    "I didn't know that," he sputtered.

    "That's because no one told you," I smiled.

    I bet he also doesn't know that in the 143 years since Confederation, Parliament has been prorogued almost once a year on average. (h/t) Winnipeg Free Press"

It was all media driven. Given the polls in the last weeks it shows how media bias can manipulate public opinion.

BTW. Is the media all in an outrage and is there full coverage over Liberal Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's prorogation of the Ontario legislature? Is there a Facebook Page? Will there be rallies?

Once again, Conservatives=bad, Liberals=good

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Calgary Herald’s web site is an opinion piece that highlights the essential hypocrisy of those who protested so loud and long about Harper’s routine prorogation:

http://www.calgaryherald.com/columnists/Double+standard+prorogation+telling/2563069/story.html

Double standard on prorogation is telling

BY LICIA CORBELLA
CALGARY HERALD

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Where, pray tell, are the howls of outrage? Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced Wednesday that he will prorogue Ontario's provincial parliament soon and nary a peep has been heard from the usual suspects. Are those 150-plus apoplectic academics who denounced Prime Minister Stephen Harper for "violating democracy" rewriting that open letter to now condemn McGuinty?

Is the fella who started up the Facebook page, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, with more than 225,000 "fans", going to launch a new one to lambaste McGuinty?

These are rhetorical questions because those of us who live in the real world know the answer. Proroguing is only something those professors and protesters care about if it's someone like Harper who does it. If it's someone like Bob Rae, a former premier of Ontario (and likely the worst premier in Canada's history) who does it, there's no mention of it. Rae prorogued Ontario's parliament three times in his majority government's seemingly eternal five years in power, for about four months each time! Ontarians -- who very quickly grew despondent with the scandals and staggering incompetence of Rae's reckless tax-and-spend NDP government -- never protested the lengthy prorogation of Ontario's provincial parliament. A quick library search turned up not one criticism of Rae's love of long legislative breaks. Of course, when a government is prorogued, it can't bring in any new taxes or money bills, so taxpayers likely felt immense relief when Rae turned out the lights at Queen's Park.

It wasn't until the federal NDP, Liberals and separatist Bloc Quebecois tried to usurp democracy by forming a coalition in December 2008, that most Canadians first heard of prorogation. At that point, polls show most Canadians were relieved that Harper went to visit our Governor General to seek prorogation and allow that crisis to cool down. In that case, prorogation wasn't just the right thing to do, it was righteous. How those academics could view that as "self-serving" on Harper's part, rather than what was best for the country, is hard to comprehend.

Just imagine the Bloc holding the balance of power, and then Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton bowing to Bloc pressure by maybe naming separatists to our Senate until the age of 75. After all, it's only Harper's appointees who agree to six-year terms.

When Harper's government, however, announced this past Dec. 30 that it was proroguing Parliament to "recalibrate", it was a huge miscalculation of the dislike Canadians have of feeling as though our politicians think we're stupid and not paying attention. Even choosing that date -- a day when four Canadian soldiers and Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang were killed in Afghanistan -- was bordering on disgraceful.

The Taliban prisoner issue was heating up and Harper's Machiavellian machinations made it look as though the government was running from those committees, when what it should do is release all documents uncensored, watermark and stamp them for each member, have committee members swear on punishment of jail time not to leak them (since it could compromise people's lives) and let the Liberals come to the defence of Taliban murderers who were having "troubles sleeping because of stress" while in prison.

It was also a miscalculation on Harper's part to announce the prorogation so early. Parliament wasn't set to resume until Jan. 25. Had he waited until Jan. 11 or 18 to announce prorogation, the news cycle with Haiti, among other issues, would have deflected some of the partisan criticism. Then, Parliament would have been prorogued for five weeks instead of nine.

A local MP pointed out recently that announcing prorogation so early was to prevent MPs from booking flights back to Ottawa from their constituencies. What's more, by proroguing, the extra pay parliamentarians make for sitting on committees doesn't get paid, so the government saves many thousands of dollars.

Despite those reasons, this was a blunder that has cost Harper dearly, as his poll numbers plummet even as his governing of late has been exemplary.

Those who say the PM and his cabinet are not working because they're not engaged in the vulgar theatre of question period are stating the absurd. Canada had the swiftest response to Haiti's earthquake (unlike the dithering of Paul Martin following the tsunami). Harper came up with the idea and hosted a conference with world leaders in Montreal on Haiti within days of that tragedy, delivered some memorable speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, appointed five new senators so crime legislation will stop being undemocratically held up by an obstructionist Liberal Senate, and got Canada exempted from the U.S.'s damaging Buy American policy, all as the Conservatives work on a new budget and Throne Speech.

No, you won't hear any howling about McGuinty's prorogation because prorogation is just a normal parliamentary procedure. The difference in how McGuinty and Harper have been treated has more to do with Liberals feeling entitled to govern and being incredulous that they aren't. That's what the howling is really all about.

lcorbella@theherald. canwest.com

[color=yellow[]© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald[/color]

Nothing much to add, except that Harper could not have foreseen the Haiti earthquake unless, as (left > right) Maude Barlow, Lind McQuaig and Judy Rebick (didn’t Shakespeare right something about three women and a cauldron?) doubtless believe, he caused it.

]

or, maybe

 

[Fishbone Jones]

While we're posting pictures of Harper's critics, I offer my submission.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is, [for me, the last word of the prorogation non-issue – it ended too soon:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/our-mps-work-hard-just-not-at-their-real-job/article1483423/

Our MPs work hard – just not at their real job
Parliament has failed to fulfill its most fundamental responsibility: controlling government spending

Neil Reynolds

Monday, Mar. 01, 2010 4:20AM EST

What's past is prorogue. It appears that Canadian democracy has survived “the padlocking of Parliament” – however narrowly. Now MPs head back to work traumatically bereft of 22 parliamentary sittings. These lost days must be restored. In figurative terms at least, they caused the contemporary equivalent of the storming of the Bastille. Fortunately, opposition MPs have the authority, all by themselves, to right the wrong. They need merely pass a motion authorizing extra sittings. In a minority Parliament, they have the votes to do it.

Our MPs have plenty of parliamentary precedents – from Westminster, no less – for three ways to restore the lost days.

Our MPs could extend their work day. Rather than convene at 10 a.m., they could convene at 8 a.m., as British MPs commonly did before 1570, or at 7 a.m., as they commonly did after 1570. Alternatively, our MPs could convene at 6 a.m., as British MPs commonly did in the early 1600s. These precedents imply that the more puritanical the times, the earlier the work day begins.

Our MPs could sit on Saturdays, a common practice at Westminster through the 1600s and the early 1700s – until 1732 when Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister, peremptorily cancelled Saturday sittings so that he “might secure at least one day's hunting a week.” By this decree, Sir Robert invented “the weekend,” a fashionable concept that would eventually sweep the entire world.

Our MPs could sit during the summer, a common practice at Westminster through the 1800s. For the British MPs, summer sittings were difficult – given the stench from the Thames. They did, of course, give themselves a couple of weeks off in the last half of August. (Grouse hunting season began Aug. 12; salmon fishing season ended Aug. 31.)

Our MPs will do nothing of the sort, of course – they lack the requisite puritanical inclination. This is probably just as well. The fact is that prorogation gave the country a learning experience. We learned that prorogation is a relatively common parliamentary device, however craftily it may be used for the political advantage of the prorogator. (In Prime Minister Stephen Harper's defence, he uses it only when he needs it.) We learned that restaurants, bars, hotels and cab drivers in downtown Ottawa take a serious economic hit when Parliament is not sitting. We learned that MPs could go on strike for an extended period without any compelling need for back-to-work legislation.

The real tragedy of the Commons is something quite different than a three-week coup d'état. It is, simply put, the failure of Parliament to fulfill its most fundamental responsibility – the control of government spending. This is the task for which members of Parliament exist and without which they meet no significant need – without which, as prime minister Pierre Trudeau, speaking for the Crown, so eloquently put it 40 years ago, they are “just nobodies.”

Beginning with the Magna Carta as a first draft in 1215, History designed Parliament to control the spending of the Crown. It did so paradoxically, requiring the Commons to sign off on all spending proposed by the Crown yet simultaneously denying it the authority to spend a dime on its own initiative.

Expressed formally, the House of Commons can receive “no petition for any sum of money relating to public service except what is recommended by the Crown.” Alternatively, the House “may not vote sums in excess of Government estimates … and consequently, the only amendments that are in order are those which aim to reduce the sums requested [by the Government.]” In other words, History trusted the Commons to discipline the expansionist aspirations of the Crown – but not to safeguard the nearby pockets of the people. And History was right.

These strictures weren't limited to British parliamentary democracy. The U.S. Constitution gave Congress a line-item veto – which it denied to presidents. In the 1800s, Congress used this authority to specify precisely what expenditures it was approving – right down to the number of candles needed in any particular office.

MPs do work hard – what with all the committee work, constituency work and political work. They just don't work hard at their real job. Although they sat for 130 days last year, it took only hours to approve spending of $240-billion, which works out to roughly $1.8-billion per sitting. With no sense of embarrassment and no appreciation of the dark irony of it, they spend much more time increasing federal spending than they do in supervising it. Prorogation kept these seditious MPs out of the House for 22 days. History would suggest that these spendthrifts are coming back too soon.

Most of elected MPs do more harm – spending – than good –cutting – when they are sitting. Keeping them away from Ottawa, and the public purse, is the best away top control rampant overspending. But, they’re back and we can expect them to put us deeper and deeper into debt as they, pretty much all of them including most in the part I support, put their partisan advantage ahead of the national good.

 

[observor 69]

The  2010 Olympic Winter Games, a true success for Canadians. It showed us we have the talent, the skill and more importantly the people to unite around a common cause and create something inspirational.

How far below that mark our parliament has fallen! 

 

[ModlrMike]

... and now the prorogation is over, we've learned the following:

1. The world did not come to an end;

2. The Government of Canada was still able to function. In deed, the Government functioned in champion fashion during the Haiti crisis;

3. There were no constitutional catastrophes that Parliament had to remedy; and

4. Contrary to the dire warnings of the Opposition, the Canadian democracy did not mutate into dictatorship through the sole mechanism of emptying the House.