You may recall that in October Canada held an election. Many Canadians found this to be a waste of time and money, as the election changed nothing other than the numbers of seats each party held — the Conservatives still held the most seats but still formed a minority government, the Liberals lost seats but still formed the Official Opposition, and the Bloc Québécois and the NDP brought up the rear. The election cost $300 million, and was actually held contrary to the Fixed Election Dates Act that the Conservatives themselves brought in.

Some analysts say that the Conservatives brought about the election in an attempt to get enough seats in Parliament to form a majority government, and thus have enough power to push their desires through Parliament without having to bend to the wishes of the other, more left-leaning, parties. Others say that the Conservatives saw the economic downturn coming and, realizing that right-leaning parties typically fare worse under weakening economic times, tried to gain a majority in Parliament before their party’s fortune weakened with the economy. In any case, the Conservatives maintained their tenuous grasp on leading Canada.

On November 27, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty provided his fiscal update to the House of Commons, which included a suspension of the right of public employees to go on strike until 2011, the selling-off of Crown assets, and the elimination of public funding for political parties. The latter point enraged the other parties. In Canada, political parties receive $1.95 for every vote they get in a federal election. This tends to help smaller parties more, as they receive less money in donations and rely on public funding to keep running. The Conservatives are the least reliant on these funds, as they make up 37% of the money they received in 2007. For the Liberals, this funding made up 63% of the money they received, the NDP 57%, the Green Party 65%, and the Bloc Québécois a whopping 86%. The three opposition parties stated that they would not support this fiscal update in a vote on December 1.

As fiscal votes are votes of confidence in Parliamentary governments, if a majority of members vote against a fiscal vote this means that the House has lost confidence in the leadership, and this typically spurs the Governor General (the Queen’s representative in Canada) to dissolve Parliament. This was what the Conservative government faced last week.

Flaherty announced that he would not bring the update before the House, averting that crisis. However, December 1 was also to be an opposition day where the opposition parties set the agenda. This meant that the opposition parties could schedule a vote of confidence in the government, and this vote would probably result in a “no confidence” outcome. This opposition day was cancelled by the Conservatives, and the next one would be held on December 8.

Since then the Liberals and the NDP have come to an agreement to form a coalition party. This coalition would hold 114 seats to the Conservatives 143 and thus still not hold a majority of seats. The Bloc Québécois have come out in support of the coalition, stating that they would support the coalition on confidence votes. Thus the coalition would, for the all-important confidence votes, have another 49 seats, giving them 163, a majority of the 308 seats in Canada’s House of Commons.

This left Prime Minister Stephen Harper with few options. He could dissolve Parliament, thus forcing another election. This option would be looked upon disfavourably by the public. He could ask the Governor General to prorogue Parliament until January, which means that Parliament would be suspended and not meet until then. He could ask the GG to prorogue Parliament for up to a year. He could also resign as Prime Minister, forcing the Governor General to request that Parliament form a new government, which would allow the Liberal/NDP coalition to form the government.

Today Stephen Harper asked Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue Parliament until January 26.

Now, here’s my take. Readers probably know that I’m a leftie. I voted for the NDP in the last election. I don’t like Stephen Harper one bit. I think that his decision to prorogue Parliament until January is a case of taking his ball and going home. Canada is currently in the mires of an economic downturn, and Canada needs a government that will do something about it. Instead Harper suspends Parliament and forces nothing to happen for seven weeks, all because his tenuous grasp on power was threatened. This is the man that is supposed to lead Canada? This is the man who says he has Canada’s interests at heart?

Stephen Harper is a dangerous man, and this move must backfire. One can never overestimate the intelligence of the Canadian electorate, however.