What a bother! That fussy Mr. Mulcair is making trouble for the Hair again. He wants Canada’s Prime Minister to ask parliament for permission to send troops to Iraq. It seems a lot of bother for a matter of just 69 soldiers going to the aid of Canada’s friends in Kurdistan and Iraq. After all, the Hair’s buddy, American President Barack Obama, has the power to send help to the Iraq government without calling Congress together to discuss the plans.
But Canada has a different system of government. The Americans have a republic wherein the President heads the administration and has substantial executive powers. He has to also deal with a bicameral Congress that controls taxation. Canada has a parliamentary system of government where parliament is the ultimate authority. As much as the Hair gets frustrated with the constraints of reporting to parliament, he is not brave enough to call a constitutional congress to change how Canadians are governed. Hell, he would have enough problems with his own party if he tried that.
And as much as the Hair tries to ignore that fussy little Mr. Mulcair, the gentleman is the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and he has the responsibility to call on the Prime Minister of the day to account to parliament. It is much more fun for the Hair to belittle the leader of the third party in parliament, that flighty Mr. Trudeau. The only problem with that is that public opinion polls, as useless and as inconsistent as they might be, are telling him that if an election were called today, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is likely to become Prime Minister.
So what is the Hair to do? He can hardly keep proroguing parliament every time he is pissed with the questions and heckling he gets there. There are news media people sitting there and reporting on his intransigence. He can hardly bully all the media owners to sit on such a good running story. Maybe Bell Canada will listen to him but that company is in danger of a revolt by the CTV News Department. The media people are all waiting gleefully for Senator Mike Duffy’s story of his bribe from the Hair’s Chief of Staff to be told in Ontario’s provincial courts.
The reality is though that Canada’s parliamentary system is not as rigid as the American congressional system. It has lots more flexibility. And the Hair has always been a rapt student of the loopholes and side doors of our parliament. It is as simple as considering the right of Mr. Mulcair or even Mr. Trudeau asking him a question in parliament. They certainly have the right to ask questions. Nowhere in the rules though does it have any penalties for failing to answer them.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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