There's cold and then there's COLD!

[altivo]

There was a young man from Quebec,
Who stood buried in snow to his neck.
  When they asked, "Is you friz?"
  He replied "Yes, I is.
But we don't call this cold in Quebec."

[Vague reference to the befuddled political tangle in Canada, in which the prime minister who is about to get tossed out of power by a Parliamentary vote of no confidence has been granted permission by the queen's own governor general to suspend Parliament for a couple of months while he figures out what to do. This is rather like allowing a US President who faces impeachment to suspend Congress until he's ready to deal with it.]

It's COLD here. Not only did it get down to 7°F last night, but it's headed down to about the same level again tonight. Fired up the woodstove good and hot this evening.

To add to the cold, a gift box arrived yesterday. This rather large box turned out to contain a thick styrofoam cooler inside which there was a huge block of dry ice, the biggest single chunk of CO₂ ice I have ever seen. Under the dry ice, when it was lifted very carefully to avoid freeze burns, there were four prime beefsteaks in hermetically sealed packages. Not to worry, we don't look gift cows in the mouth. (If they had been horse, well, it would be very different.) But it does seem a rather extravagant gift even from someone who can afford it.

Comments

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

This is rather like allowing a US President who faces impeachment to suspend Congress until he's ready to deal with it.

Except, of course, in the specific detail that it's pretty much nothing like it. Impeachment would be equivalent to an indictment under criminal law, unlike a normal parliamentary vote of no confidence. Furthermore, and perhaps rather significantly, the US President would obviously not be within his rights to do so.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I really don't think the designers of the Parliamentary system ever intended to allow a PM to suspend Parliament in order to avoid a vote of no confidence either. They mistakenly assumed that no gentleman would ever take such a sleazy action.

Impeachment in the US is not the same as indictment under criminal law. It is a mechanism for exercising the vote of no confidence. It does make the official being impeached eligible for criminal prosecution if appropriate, but that action must be taken separately and only after the impeachment has succeeded.

Yes, I realize that the sequence of events in Canada just now is entirely within the realm of the legally permissible. That doesn't, however, remove the stench of perfidy from it. There was a time when a PM confronted with such a situation would have simply resigned to avoid the national embarrassment of a no confidence vote, rather than looking for a loophole to retain power.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Whatever the practical possibilities of impeachment, I'll still argue, at least, that the mechanism was never intended to fulfil the same role as a vote of no confidence.

The relevant bit of the Constitution says approximately that "the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors". I'm given to understand an impeachment vote should be followed by a separate vote to (mysteriously enough) determine guilt over said crimes or misdemeanors. The fact of the matter may well be that Congress gets to determine the criteria off the drop of a hat, but the function and purpose is clearly utterly different. If impeachment served the normal purpose of a no confidence vote, Bush Jr, as perhaps any President facing a hostile Congress, would've been impeached ages ago.

If you're simply fielding a general moral criticism of the PM and not, for instance, of the Governor General's office, I'd say that's fair enough. I can even agree with the general sentiment even if it doesn't entirely make sense to me.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I did say "rather like" and I'm referring to the ethical and practical issue, not the nature of the consequence. However, the impeachment process only parallels indictment, trial, and conviction in the sense of process. "Conviction" in an impeachment proceeding has only one literal consequence: removal from public office. If there is to be an actual criminal charge and trial, that must follow separately. No US president has ever actually been convicted and removed from office, though several have been threatened with impeachment and two have actually been forced to face the Senate trial process.

Yes, I think the move by the PM in this case is slimy and unethical, even though it seems perfectly legal in the technical sense. And I think the GG failed to take the appropriate action. Her decision is impeding what should be the normal consequence of the Conservatives' boneheaded actions subsequent to the election, and worse, suspending democratic process to let Harper run the country without checks and balances for possibly longer than expected.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Sounds fair. I suppose my exact beef, then, would have to be the ethical equivalence you invoke. The context is so different. I'll accept that the two processes are ethically equivalent if, but only if, no criminal charges and trial would be either expected or required after a succesful removal from office via impeachment. (Mr Harper's exact sin, after all, is simply that he failed to prevent the inevitable reconciliation between the opposition parties.)

As for the GG, if I'm not entirely mistaken the extraordinary thing to do would be to withold Mr Harper his prorogation. As far as I know no Governor General has ever refused such a request. A prorogation would in this sense be business as usual. (I agree with the Liberals it wouldn't be at all unreasonable for Ms Jean to refuse the prorogation, but the opposition has also made statements to the effect that Mr Harper should be refused specifically because he should not be treated as a PM -- which is to say he should be treated as already having lost a vote of no confidence, which is simply not the case.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It seems pretty clear that Harper would lose the vote of no confidence. Therefore, letting him prorogue on those grounds is unacceptable. If he would not lose, then it doesn't hurt him to have the prorogation denied.

As it turns out (at least in my research) the only instances in which a GG for Canada has denied requests from a PM have been similar, though the exact conditions were different enough that it wasn't a prorogation request that triggered it. The PM was voted out and refused to resign, or other similar situations. It was entirely within existing precedent for her to deny this request, and if the no confidence vote actually failed, then he wins anyway. If the vote passes, then he should be out of office anyway.

Harper's "sin" is not his alone, but the responsibility of his party, which is typical in Parliamentary politics. The error was behaving as if he were leading a majority government and could force through legislation that would be repugnant to the other parties. That one deserves the vote of no confidence in my opinion.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

If you are talking about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Byng_Affair
The GG's decision in 1925 favoured a minority government over a coalition government, and the decision avoided an election. The GG's decision in 2008 favoured a minority government over a coalition government, and avoided an election. The precedent actually went the same way as current events, and not the opposite way, as you suggest.

I don't like the Conservatives, but quite frankly, I dislike the prospects of having a coalition government about 10 times as much. It is a question of stability - something that we really could use right now. We already had a damned election less than two months ago. The Conservatives' proposals were bad, and deserved to get shot down in flames, but it is not worth having the government fall over in such a short time. The GG's decision was appropriate, and in the best interests of the country.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I can only call it as it appears from here, and of course, I admit, I'm only Canadian by descent and not by citizenship.

The actual precedents I looked at were ones where the GG explicitly overrode the requests of the PM, in 1896 and (I think it was) 1923.

It depends largely, I think, on how you view the GG's responsibilities, and that's a difficult thing since the post is so much of a rubber stamp so much of the time now. Certainly she followed the path of "least resistance" by just agreeing to the PM's requests as usual. But in my view, this is not a business as usual situation.

If this were 1869, then I'd have expected the GG to move to "maintain stability" at the expense of appearances or whatever. But it's not 1869 any more, and never will be again I hope.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

OK, I was wrong. It was 1925 and King-Byng was the second precedent. (The first being 1896 when Lord Aberdeen refused to confirm appointments recommended by the PM Charles Tupper.) But even then, I read it differently. Lord Byng was in fact not granting the request of the PM, who wanted to dissolve Parliament and call for an election, but rather, was attempting to offer the Conservatives, who actually had the largest number of seats in Parliament but only a plurality, to form a government to replace King's minority Liberal government. King then resigned, as is customary, and Meighen attempted to put the Conservative minority government in place, but ultimately lost the required vote by just one. An election resulted anyway.

So Lord Byng denied the request of a PM, who was trying to dissolve Parliament in order to avoid a procedural vote (though at that time it was a vote of censure rather than an actual no confidence.) And thus I would say that likewise, Michaelle Jean could have appropriately denied Harper's request, because he too was seeking to avoid a procedural vote and dodge the consequences of his and his party's prior actions.

As far as I can tell, no GG has actually denied a PM's requests since 1925? Is that right? So there's a lot of depth to the rut that Jean was treading. but those reserve powers exist for a reason and I think this is an example of why they still exist.

Interestingly, as I missed this one before, apparently in 1873 Lord Dufferin "reluctantly" agreed to the PM's request to prorogue Parliament in order to hold off an investigation and censure. The GG limited the prorogation to a maximum of ten weeks, and at the end of that time, Parliament reconvened and censured MacDonald anyway, forcing him to resign. Do you think that will happen this time?

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

Yes, it seems that 1925 was the last time the GG refused a PM's request.

One thing that I have noticed about proroguations is that the opposition always calls foul when it happens. There's always something that they can point to that's unique or maybe just out of the ordinary enough that the opposition will try to make political mileage out of it. But I think that's the nature of politics, and so this current situation is maybe not so out of the ordinary, or at least not as surprising, when viewed in that context.

What I think is going to happen when parliament resumes:
That depends on the Liberals, specifically those Liberals who want their leader (Stephane Dion) replaced sooner rather than later. There are enough of them that the coalition could more or less fall apart by January. If that happens, it'll just be back to business as usual. If not, then anything could happen.

One other consequence of the proroguation, that not too many people are pointing to but which is very significant, is that it effectively means that Obama has to take the next move in softening the recession in North America. I think the Canadian Conservatives have reached the point where they don't want to spend any more money on the problem until they see what happens south of the border - the proroguation serves a secondary purpose of being a convenient excuse for why nothing more is going to be done about the problem for nearly two months. So for now, the Canadian economy has to fend for itself.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually, it looks like the next "move" may well be a big loan to the auto manufacturers. Congress plans to tie it all up in limitations and red tape, which is a good idea in my opinion, so it doesn't end up in golden parachutes and frivolous waste. And they will have to pay it back, just as Chrysler did on a previous occasion... This action may well play out even before Obama is inaugurated.

Now if only they'd done the same with all these rogue banks and pig-headed executives thereof.

[alaskawolf.livejournal.com]

yum prime beefsteak :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not very healthy stuff to eat, but I agree it's tasty.

If we're going to eat such bad stuff, we'd rather have it grilled over real charcoal too, which is even less healthy. So it gets saved in the freezer until spring...

[infl8ablewolf.livejournal.com]

I feel you as far as the cold part goes. Its dropping to 0F here in Northern New Mexico tonight.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We usually get a few days this cold each winter, but normally they come in January or February. New Mexico is a pretty place, at least the part I've seen. So you've graduated now?

[infl8ablewolf.livejournal.com]

Aye, I graduated back in May and have been looking for work since, well better work. I'm enjoying my time here in New Mexico but i'm definitely ready to get back to civilization and citys with more than one bar. lol

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, a belated congratulations on graduating. It's a rough time to be job hunting, so I'll send some favorable energy your way for whatever it's worth.

I was last in New Mexico a long time ago (1973) but I really enjoyed the desert scenery and the mountains. Santa Fe and Albuquerque's "Old Town" were also great to visit, at least for me.

[infl8ablewolf.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the good vibes and congratulations Tivo, I really appreciate it. I've been to Albuquerque's old town but never Sante Fe's. I'm up near Taos and I've been to the old town there, which is pretty nice. The views i get daily here are breathtaking at times.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Do you know who gave you the steak?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I haven't found a gift card, oddly enough, but it has to be from my brother and sister-in-law. They've sent similar gifts in the past, and at least for the moment can afford such extravagance. (Though I'm always a bit embarrassed at receiving these things. He's a corporate VP with a net worth many times my own.)

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Well, it is not always the money that measures a person's worth. You have made my life more tolerable already. :) *nuzzles and hugs*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Aww, I haven't done that much. I'm too far away.

I'm glad my little bit helps though.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

You have done more than you think. And it does help a lot, believe me. :)

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Who gave you that delicious present? :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Has to be my brother and sister-in-law, though there was no gift card.

[flamekist.livejournal.com]

I wish I had friends that sent me steak from time to time!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

While I'm not unappreciative, I find the extravagance a bit embarrassing.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

But you are so worth all the prezzies you get :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, at least you and the sender think so, I guess. :)