Much to surprise of the keepers of "what's in" and "what's out", the prorogue story hasn't gone away. Social networking - facebook in particular - has provided a vehicle for democrats to express their opinions, their feelings and their next steps. The largest facebook group is CAPP (Canadians against Proroguing Parliament) with 78,000 members and growing. Even more significant than the numbers - which are being met with mixed reaction by the media, it that it is being used to organize rallies across the country. There are at least twenty activities planned so far. People are also encouraged to write the PM and their MP.
I just saw an interesting clip about the CAPP founder on TV news and about how "prorogue" is growing in terms of modern lexicon and is being applied to anything we don't like - the weather, television shows, work, taxes, etc. Harper dismissed Peter Manbridge's proroguing question on CBC last night. Routine. Everyone does it. No big deal. "Recalibration". As far as the PM is concerned, Canadians don't care about democracy and he doesn't care about the few (partisans) that do.
Whatever the outcome - and it would be naive to expect the PM to back down - it's added some much needed spirit to what has been very depressing politics since the coalition imploded. We're stuck with Harper because no one thinks he can be beat. Sad. How will the NDP ever be able to make Parliament "work" after March 3? Will Iggy support the budget without even bothering to read it? Or will it be the Bloc's turn to prop Harper up for another year? Will Harper pull the plug himself for a spring election?
I'm quite glad to see that Fair Vote Canada has spoken out on the prorogation issue. They issued a statement yesterday signed by 132 political scientists supporting a look at fair voting principles and systems.
Meanwhile there are still good op-eds being written.
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