Canadian leader provokes anger by closing Parliament

By Ian Austen

Published: December 5, 2008

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OTTAWA: Canada's parliamentary opposition reacted with outrage after Prime Minister Stephen Harper shut down the Legislature until Jan. 26, seeking to forestall a no-confidence vote that he was sure to lose and that might have provoked a constitutional crisis.

Harper acted Thursday after getting the approval of Governor General Michaëlle Jean, who represents Queen Elizabeth as the nation's head of state. If his request had been rejected, he would have had to choose between stepping down or facing the no-confidence vote on Monday.

The opposition fiercely criticized the decision to suspend Parliament, accusing Harper of undermining the nation's democracy.

"We have to say to Canadians, is this the kind of government you want?" said Bob Rae, a member of the opposition Liberal Party. "Do we want a party in place that is so undemocratic that it will not meet the House of Commons?"

That sentiment was echoed by constitutional scholars, who lamented that the governor general might have created a mechanism that future prime ministers could use to bypass the legislature when it seemed convenient.

"This really has been a blow to parliamentary democracy in Canada," said Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. "It has lowered the status of the elected Parliament and raised the status of the unelected prime minister."

Thursday's events had their origins in a hotly contested election that Harper's Conservative Party won less than two months ago without achieving a majority, leaving it vulnerable to challenge. In light of that and the growing economic turmoil, Harper pledged to work closely with the opposition in Parliament.

But when he presented a proposed budget last week it had none of the stimulus programs that the opposition had sought to help Canada's sagging economy. The final insult for the main opposition parties, the New Democrats and the Liberals, was a provision that would eliminate public financing for political parties. They considered it a deliberate slap because Harper's Conservative Party is currently far better financed than they are.

With that, they began scrambling to put together a coalition with the backing of the separatist Bloc Québécois to displace Harper's government.

Harper said he suspended Parliament to allow time to put together a budget that he will introduce in January, and once again spoke in conciliatory terms, inviting the opposition to participate in the drafting. "Today's decision will give us an opportunity - and I'm talking about all the parties - to focus on the economy and work together."

But Stéphane Dion, who leads the Liberals and who would become the coalition's prime minister, dismissed the idea of working with Harper and said the Conservatives' budget was unlikely to satisfy the opposition's economic demands.

"We do not want any more of his words; we don't believe them," Dion told reporters before the closed doors of the House of Commons.

"We want to see changes, monumental changes."

Opposition leaders said they would continue to try to form a new coalition, and strongly criticized Harper's attempt to thwart them.

"He's put a lock on the door on the House of Commons," Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democrats, told reporters. "He refuses to face the people of Canada through their elected representatives." The past several days have been filled with political turmoil, as the Liberals and New Democrats worked together on a plan to form a coalition, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, to replace Harper's Conservative-led government. Such a turn would also be unprecedented in Canadian politics.

The news of the parliamentary suspension came after a two-and-a-half hour long meeting in Ottawa between Harper and Jean, the governor general. Harper, speaking to reporters during snow flurries outside of Rideau Hall, the governor general's official residence, said: "The public is very frustrated by the current situation in Parliament and we are all responsible for it."

In contrast to the relative indifference to the elections two months ago, the current situation has provoked a passionate debate in the country online, in public and through radio call-in shows.

The issue has also inflamed old regional tensions. In Western Canada, the main base of support for the Conservatives, political commentators are arguing that the coalition is an attempt by more populous Ontario and Quebec to deny political influence to the West.

At the same time, many Quebecers, particularly French speakers, have been offended by Conservative suggestions that they have no interest in remaining a part of Canada. In the House of Commons, where debate is not always temperate, the political rhetoric has been particularly heated.

Some Conservative members are suggesting that the coalition members are near-traitors. "That is as close to treason and sedition as I can imagine," Bob Dechert, a Conservative member said on Wednesday, echoing a refrain widely heard from callers to radio programs in Harper's home province of Alberta.