Dear Stephen: You want troops? Get them from Quebec.

Now here's a fairly predictable political gambit by Stephen Harper:

On the one hand, [Harper] wants to radically decentralize power and taxing authority so that the federal government no longer plays a significant role in social areas, like medicare, that Canadians regard as national institutions.

On the other, he wants to focus and strengthen Ottawa's role in areas such as defence so that Canada can more effectively join the United States in what Harper has called the great moral battle against tyranny and terror.

But he has only a minority government. How does he plan on pulling this off? Ah, here's how:

But his twin ideas — decentralize internally; focus externally — promise to inform everything he does as prime minister.

They will help him get legislation through a divided Commons in which the Bloc Québécois holds the balance of power.

In short, Harper will suck up to the Bloc to get their votes. That's cool. A little quid pro quo, you know how it is.

I just hope that means that, when it comes time to send Canadian troops over to Iraq to get their nads blown off by roadside bombs, all those troops come from either Alberta or Quebec. Preferably Quebec. It occurs to me that, if Quebec is still serious about that whole sovereignty thing and Duceppe wants to prostitute himself out to Harper, the least Duceppe can do is not make everyone else pay the price for his selling out.

Hey, the Bloc once proposed that Quebec field its own hockey team for international tournaments. In that case, if Duceppe is really going to play this game, then let them field their own military force. And let those poor bastards get sent to Iraq. No point letting the rest of Canada suffer for this idiocy.