The yellow-bellied turtle

On December 30th, two weeks after the House of Commons ended its last sitting of 2009, the Conservatives presented themselves with a belated Christmas gift, unexpectedly proroguing Parliament until March 3rd. It was to resume sitting on January 25th. As a result, the House of Commons will be vacant for nearly three months. The Conservatives assert that this is to allow them time to consult with Canadians, particularly regarding their economic action plan, before releasing their budget on March 4th. Is this what hockey fans would call “a turtle”, or is it a brilliant strategic move that once again demonstrates the Conservatives’ ability to outfox the Liberals?

Most Canadians have seen a few hockey fights. First there’s some verbal sparring, maybe some shoving, and then two guys go at it, sometimes by prior arrangement. It’s a good way to vent frustrations and stir up the crowd. Other times, a player is a pest or has done something that deserves some retribution. In this case, when the first punch is thrown the guy on the receiving end (the pest) refuses to fight back, unwilling to take the thumping he might richly deserve. He won’t put his money where is mouth is and either skates away or falls cowering to the ice, gloved hands covering his head – he is a turtle. The net result is that someone who deserved some payback doesn’t actually get much of it, and his team, in fact, gains an advantage.

Lately, the Conservatives have not been playing in a gentlemanly fashion, and the Liberals et al., however weakly, have been trying to hold them to account. When the Conservatives were threatened by the Afghan detainee scandal they opted to skate away from the game until March, rather than defend themselves. They turtled.

Because of the prorogation every bill on the order paper has died and all committee work has been stopped. This puts an end to every official opportunity for the Opposition to rein in the Conservatives and virtually assures that they will get no time in front of the media for two more months. The Liberals have already had trouble catching the imagination (or even attention) of Canadians and this is only going to make things worse.

By proroguing Parliament the Conservatives have escaped the immediate threat of the investigation into the Afghan detainee issue, and the Liberals have been quietly shuffled out to pasture. Now the Conservatives have plenty of time to go from riding to riding, doling out cash and favours before the throne speech and subsequent budget.

Between now and March 3rd they will not be sitting idly at home, munching on leftover Christmas bonbons. They will use this extra time to buy us with our own money, replacing doorknobs, erecting economic action plan signs, and kissing babies and auto workers. They also have time to round out the Senate with five of their own appointees even though they really, really hate doing that. The Prime Minister is many things, but stupid is not one of them. He is a consummate player of the game.

Predictably, the Liberal Party and their supporters are howling with outrage. They claim that this is arrogant, undemocratic, despotic, dictatorial and a number of other hyper-excitable adjectives. Of course none of these are really true. The Prime Minister is well within the bounds of constitutional law and prorogation requires the consent of the Governor General, which she gave.

Considering their own history of “friendly dictatorships”, the Liberal party seems a bit quick to criticize Mr. Harper. The Liberals, Bloc, and NDP were not above using the constitution in novel ways when they tried to take down the Conservatives with a coalition government. That move was widely criticized as undemocratic and seen as an effort to skirt the results of the recently held election. It seems that politicians only like the first-past-the-post system when they are beneficiaries of it.

Likely, the Liberals are angry on two fronts: one, they have yet again been outplayed at their own game by Mr. Harper, and two, they have to put on their big girl panties and prepare for a spring election. If you recall, the Liberals twice called early elections in hopes of taking advantage of disarray and vote splitting on the right. That shoe must pinch awfully tightly now that it’s on the other foot.

In a recent political commentary Don Newman pointed out that the Conservatives are calling the Liberals’ bluff and practically daring them to bring down the government in March. What the Liberal Party consistently fails to mention is that it (among others) has been presented with many opportunities to dethrone the Harper government and has yet to find the gumption to actually do it. The last time the Liberals tried the electorate was prepared to hand them their hats and send them waltzing out the door.

An EKOS political poll taken between December 9th and 15th showed that the Conservatives have 35.9% support among decided voters, continuing a slow decline that started in October. They are slipping further away from the 40% benchmark that is seen as necessary for a majority government. Wherever their support is leaking to, however, it isn’t the Liberal party, whose numbers remain virtually unchanged since the fall, at 26.7%.

Regionally, the Conservatives lead everywhere except Quebec, where the Bloc is in front and the Liberals are second. The only other circumstances in which the Liberals lead the Conservatives are among voters under 25 and in Toronto (quelle surprise). With 12% of voters undecided or unwilling to answer it appears that the Conservatives are not completely wrong to think that they might have a chance of winning their gamble. Most Canadians will barely notice that Parliament has not been in session; the detainees will be a distant memory, few care about the Senate, and many will be drunk on the sweet nectar of stimulus cash.

It appears that turtling, although reviled, does seem to get the job done – at least in the short term. Perhaps those on the left of the political spectrum will use the break to develop some coherent policy alternatives, something deeper than “anything but Conservative”. The Liberals in particular need to turn their attention to repairing their internal divides and get back to giving centre-leftists an unembarrassing place to call home.

The Conservatives need to work on being, or at least appearing, a little warmer, a little fuzzier, and a little more humble. They need to concentrate more on leading the country to better times without totally bankrupting us and less on the obliteration of their political opponents. Me, I’m just counting the days until March 3rd.

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Tags: Conservative Party, election, Liberal Party, prorogue, stephen harper

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.