Canadian Cynic: Dear Michaëlle Jean:

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Dear Michaëlle Jean:

Fuck you. Seriously.

13 comments:

That guy said...: I would have been surprised, actually, if she'd done anything else. The GG really is a figurehead when it comes to these things. Which, of course, is one more reason why Harper figured his fixed election law was meaningless. If the GG was never going to stop him, then who else would?; 1:25 PM
Reg said...: What was she to have done, ask Dion to from a government? Dion and the Liberals are weak, Layton knows this, so would he support a Dion minority government? Of course he wouldn't. Dion would have come out looking even weaker than he already does. Hope you enjoy the ride on Air Inuit, CC.; 1:54 PM
Beijing York said...: While touring blogs, I read somewhere that Laureen and Michaëlle are good pals. They hang out at Harrington together and go for walks in the woods.

Meanwhile, Harper has made a mockery of the whole Parliamentary system of government throughout his ignoble term as PM.; 2:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Seriously CC, a little charity for the lady whose hands are tied. Short of ordering the murder of Canadian citizens, her functions are purely symbolic.; 3:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Hmmm, to clarify, short of the PMO ordering the murder of Canadians... DOes that make more sense? Damn, far too much Guinness and rye last night.; 3:06 PM
Scotian said...: Reg:

What she should have done is require Harper to follow the law he wrote, passed and had her sign which left her the power to call an election if and when the government loses a vote of non confidence, which is *NOT* what happened here. In a Parliamentary system of government confidence and it's lack is not a state of mind a PM determines from meetings but a formal action which if you knew (or not pretending to be stupid/ignorant about, have to give the benefit of the doubt that you are a liar instead of ignorant after all I don't know you) anything about the system of government we operate under would have been blindingly obvious.

That Harper has made the GG complicit in this illegality (after all breaking a law is exactly that regardless of whether it is a criminal code or not) is a further example of his contempt for the fundamental basics of how Canadian Parliamentary democracy works. That you fail to see/recognize/understand this shows at the minimum your own ignorance if not the same kind of contempt as Harper is showing. This was a disgusting act by Harper, and he has tarnished not only his office but the Head of State's office as well with this action (Jean did too, but in fairness she is not a constitutional expert and the tradition has been for the GG to do as the PM of the day requires when calling an election, but then Harper passed his fixed date elections legislation/law which changed everything and put her in the position a GG is not supposed to be in and she made the mistake of deferring instead of requiring Harper to lose a vote of non-confidence as the legislation required) something I know of no other PM in our history to have done. Yet another unprecedented act of contempt and illegality by Harper where the fundamental laws of how we govern ourselves in this nation are concerned whenever they get in his way, even his own laws are shown contempt for, which shows the true nature of Harper and why he is so dangerous for this nation's long term survival.; 3:18 PM
CC said...: Scotian:

As much as it may surprise you to hear it, I don't believe Harper technically broke any laws, even his own. After a fair bit of reading, I'm now convinced that the legislation that was passed was effectively meaningless and did absolutely nothing to prevent calling an election at any time.

More on that in an upcoming post.; 3:34 PM
liberal supporter said...: cc says: "I don't believe Harper technically broke any laws, even his own"

I can top that! me: "I think Jack Layton got it right"

Heard on the radio, Jack saying he's applying for Stephen Harper's job, because Steve quit.

We don't know what happened at Rideau Hall, do we? Steve may well have resigned, in so many words, and stayed completely within his law.; 5:46 PM
That guy said...: CC --

Yes, I think that last comment is absolutely correct. A fixed election law doesn't mean anything in a parliamentary system.; 5:47 PM
Luna said...: Yup. It would have required a constitutional amendment to make the fixed election date shit binding. And that *so* wasn't going to happen. It's stupid anyway. Like Harper!

Actually, the SOB is cunning and devious. He says he's expecting another minority, which is utter bullshit. You do not call an election expecting another minority. What he's doing is saying that because he knows that people won't vote for him if they think he might get a majority. I don't know how many people I've heard say, "I'll vote Conservative. They're not getting a majority anyway. I'd vote Liberal if I thought they would" or something to that effect. GAH! Makes me want to scream.

My husband works for the feds. In environmental areas. Wanna bet that shit gets cut PRONTO when Stevie wins? GRRR.; 6:14 PM
Scotian said...: CC:

I'll defer to you on this one, as I have not studied the law in all that great detail, and what I did was when it was passed, so I am willing to acknowledge I am off base on this one. I did get the impression when I read it that it constrained the PM from going to the GG for dissolution unless there was a vote of non-confidence first though. That it constrained the PM's powers but not the GG's (which clearly would have taken a Constitutional amendment) in this regard. However, given that Harper is clearly a fan of the way of the weasel I am willing to believe it was set up in such a way as to look good but be useless in reality. Personally I hope someone takes Harper to court over this to see exactly what the judicial system thinks on this, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon, and even if it did I can't see how it would happen fast enough to have any impact on this election call.; 6:23 PM
M@ said...: It didn't constrain the PM's powers, Scotian, any more than it constrained the GG's. In fact, it had no bearing at all on those powers at all, because they're constitutional, and this law explicitly falls beneath constitutional requirements.

All the law did was require Elections Canada to perform certain acts at a certain time. Whether parliament was doing anything to justify them at that time was always irrelevant.

Which is even funnier, given that the current government isn't exactly clamouring to work with Elections Canada these days. I'm pretty sure that the reason for the election call was to avoid images of some CPC officials being led away in handcuffs from hitting the 6 o'clock news...; 12:59 AM
Anonymous said...: I still think it's absolutely uncharitable to say "Fuck you" to Ms. Jean. Unless she really wanted to create a big crisis in Canadian politics, her hands really were tied. She had to agree to the snake's request to dissolve parliament.

Harper is truly a snake, but I still blame Jack Layton for bringing the Libs down when he got too greedy to control that government all his little own self - and as a result, handed us Stephen Harper. I still haven't forgiven Layton for that.

And I will never forgive Harper for anything. They're equally power hungry, in my opinion.; 4:28 PM

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