Thursday, October 07, 2004

HERE'S A PREDICTION

The Martin government will not fall tonight.

First, no one wants this parliament to end tonight or anytime in the next fortnight. It would be collosaly irresponsible for our parliamentarians to allow such a thing to happen and the citizens would punish them for it. How? I'm not entirely sure, but I know that the Canadian electorate still has a pretty good record of expressing their collective opinion through the ballot box.

Secondly, the throne speech and everything related to it MUST be a confidence motion. I'm not saying technically according to constitutional convention, but only if the government wants to maintain any self respect. So good for Martin for not giving into Duceppe and his separatist rabble.

Third, if the Martin government does fall at some point in the next twelve months as the result of a straight up partisan vote (i.e all the Cons. and BQ def. all the Libs and NDP) with no party cross-overs, then the Governor General should not dissolve parliament. She should go to Stephan Harper and say to him, "it looks like you have a working coalition; its time for you to govern with it."

And then see how Harper likes having his fortunes tied with that lot when he has to pass legislation instead of just defeating it.

Update: Friday, 12:45 a.m.: So I was right, but it wasn't really a risky prediction. For context, earlier in the day that link to The Star article was titled 'Government Could Fall Tonight.' That headlline is going to get really old really fast if the newspapers don't realize that this is a minority parliament.

Posted by Matthew @ 3:38 p.m.