Eh, Canada: Stephen Harper Shuts Down Parliament, Merde Hits the Fan
We've been so busy watching Barack Obama's press conferences to announce secretaries of stuff, we're just getting to this now: Canada's government is in pandemonium! What the hell is happening up there?
Here's what we know. In October's wacky House of Commons election, Prime Minister Stephen "Bobblehead" Harper's Conservatives won more seats than any other party — but not enough to secure a majority. Opposition disgruntlement ensued, and last week, Harper announced a bobbleheaded budget that set off a full-scale political crisis…
Harper introduced an economic plan that included no stimulus measures but called for a three-year ban on strikes by civil servants and the abolition of public financing for political parties. The Liberal party leader, Stéphane Dion, accusing Harper of seeking to politicise the economic crisis, formed a coalition with the leftwing New Democratic party. The two also secured support from the separatist Bloc Québécois to bring down the government.
Facing the risk of being, I don't know, extradited to Nunavut, Harper pulled out the big guns: yesterday he talked the Governor General, the Queen's representative in Canada, into letting him shut down Parliament until the end of January (!).
Plus! Just for good measure, the opposition coalition is now fighting with itself.
Good grief. And I thought the hockey games were vicious.
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Better make this relevant… Parliament should have it out like in this Ottawa/Philly fight. Best fight of all time I think. If you've never seen this fight (only a few years back), get popcorn. I can watch this one over and over. Thanks for sending me on a hockey tangent. Over 11 million YouTube hits and about the same in the fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1-25s4uwFQ&NR=1
Lets not forget that Harper and his party also announced they were going to reduce the rights of workers to appeal pay equity cases to the Human Rights Commission, even though the Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender (among other things)…and the gender pay gap is still about 29%. They backed down on the other points but not on pay equity…
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/todays-paper/sweater+comes+Harper+curbs+equity/1024384/story.html
I defy anyone to find a harder hockey hit into the boards than this. This is unbelievable if you've never seen it. No joke. It's entitled, "You Just Got Knocked The **** Out"
I'm not sure what the asterisks are for. Seriously, take a minute to watch one of the greatest sports hits of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPgQNCF7Nf0&NR=1
Oh, it gets better, MPS. Harper played the "Quebec separatists" card and (falsely) implied supporting the coalition meant supporting the fracturing of our country. As you can imagine, everyone went bonkers and thus began the infighting you linked to above.
Oh, Canada, my home and native land… *facepalm*