Phew, That Was Close!

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean has approved Prime Minister Stephen Harper's request to suspend Parliament, agreeing to put the government on hold until the end of January.

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Phew, that was close! I'm glad that the Governor General chose to overstep her sympathies and do what's right for the country. At the very least - we won't have the Grinch Trio stealing Christmas this year.

What's next? The Parliament will reopen on Jan.26 with a new Throne Speech. The budget will be released on Jan.27. That means at least 2 confidence votes and, unless things change, the government will lose. If that's the situation - the Conservatives must arrange it so the vote on the budget comes first. If the opposition is determined to topple the Conservatives - they won't let the Conservative economic platform pass, no matter what's in there. But toppling the government over the budget vote won't give the opposition the chance to proceed with their own non-confidence motion which would name Dion as an alternative Prime Minister.

And then the ball will be back in the Governor General's court. Obviously, she can refuse to dissolve the Parliament, arguing that she's already yielded to the Prime Minister once, giving him the much needed break and that this time she'd act differently. At the same time - by then it will have been not mere weeks from one election to another, but several months. Plus - there's a precedent which Stephen Harper could use to defend his request - not the King-Byng affair, but Lester Pearson's attempt to take power without election in 1958.

Back then, the Liberals had actually won higher share of the popular vote in the preceding election, but ended up with fewer seats than the PCs. Unlike Dion, Lester B. Pearson was a newly elected leader, not an interim one. There was too, an economic downturn back then and the Liberals too had the "you don't know how to handle it, let us try" attitude. And, the Liberals were only 7 seats short of a plurality, not almost 70 seats short. Still, when Pearson demanded Diefenbaker to resign and to hand the power over to the Liberals, Diefenbaker responded by calling a snap election - just months after the 1957 election. Setting a new precedent.

Lester Pearson learned his lesson. Five years later, when the Parliament was in a similar situation, he didn't try to outnumber the PCs by forming a coalition with the NDP - even though it had been just months after the 1962 election. Pearson and his Liberals voted against the government and contested a new election. Which they won. If Dion doesn't want to be the Liberal leader who never gets to form a government (the first of the kind in about 90 years) - he must do just that. Contest an election and let the voters decide if they want to see his party in coalition with the hard-left and the separatist left.