Crazy Canadian Constitutional Crisis

It's amazing that even the current state of Canadian politics fails to captivate Canadian citizens...

Check out this link, one of many that outlines the current pending constitutional crisis:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081202/national/parliament_crisis

This is actually a bigger deal than people might be thinking. Our government actually operates on a number of assumed rules inherited from hundreds of years of monarchy. For example, did you know that the reason you have to pay municipal tax is based on tenement law, which basically says you owe the king a certain amount of product from what you produce on your land? (That's a bit of an oversimplification but I leave it to you to read the details...)

The truth is that many foreign governments operate with coalition minority parties forming their own government. Israel, for example, has numerous (i.e. dozens of) fringe parties that always seem to meld together to make a government. Even the last Conservative government struck an alliance with whoever it could to make things work. The idea of all the minority governments teaming up to make a new prime minister is not actually that problematic constitutionally (although Stephen Harper would have you believe the communists had stormed Parliament Hill - that's not a statement against Stephen Harper, it's just a comment on the tone of the current rhetoric).

The two real problems are simply this. First, the Bloc has no business in control of anything Canadian. They are separatists and should likely be charged with treason. The only reason they still exist is because they aren't real separatists; rather, they are more akin to the western Reform party a few years back who are just a regional party seeking a better deal for their local constituents. (Perhaps this is the only true form of regional representation left?) However, even though their soft separatist attitudes are probably closer to the American Republican party's allegiance to the no-abortion-no-queers-6000-year-old-universe fundamentalist Christians than any real allegiance to the formation of a new country. (If I were PM: I'd create a document identifying the terms of separation and leave it in Quebec's hands to sign at their leisure. I say this as a Canadian and a francophone. Yes, when I was a kid we spoke conversational French in the house as well as English. Je me souviens.)

Where was I? Ah, yes: an anti-Canadian party shouldn't exist let alone be part of a leading coalition.

Second point: the problem will eventually be solved by Michaelle Jean. Not that she's not perfectly smart and a good human being, but let's all remember that she is the figurehead representative of Queen Elizabeth II. Constitutionally speaking, we'd be just as well off sending the issue to the British House of Lords for a fucking vote. Bash it all you want, at least the American electoral college is a local construct.

Also, we don't pick governor generals because of constitutional law insight. We might as well ask Ricky Gervais how to resolve the issue, and who knows, maybe in a few years he'll be appointed as governor general and he'll be able to weigh in. Will we truly allow the prime minister to be essentially appointed by someone who wasn't even a Canadian citizen until she was asked to be governor general? (Don't get me wrong: she's as competent as any other appointee to the position; I'm arguing that the relative irrelevancy of the position is sufficient to possibly result in a constitutional crisis given the current turmoil. By the way, until she became governor general she was French - not Quebec French, citizen of France French.)

Just as I was writing this my main man Jeff directed me to some Albertan jackass op-ed piece which will probably represent most writing on this topic. Let me summarize for you: "this is a Liberal power grab, they shouldn't be allowed to do this". Thanks, buddy, for your wondrous insight on constitutional and electoral processes. I won't even pretend that this isn't a power grab, of course it is - all political parties seek to gain and hold power. This is no different from the conservatives calling an early election in spite of their promise not to do so during the prior election. The truth is that there are significant questions about this process outside of the perceived or real "power grab" that call to question the Canadian parliamentary system and how it's structured and organically grown.