Our Chickenshit PM

Others have already written about this so I really only want to add my voice.
    
More at The Galloping Beaver and Canadian Cynic

Rumours swirling around Ottawa suggest the Conservative government is thinking of shutting down Parliament until after the Olympics, killing some of its own bills but also ending the discussion of Afghan detainees that is nibbling away at Tory popularity.  The rumours suggest that Parliament would return in March, when the Games are over, with a new budget that could be used to provoke an election.

Here we go again.  Parliament shut down to save Steve’s ass until he can get together enough fuzzy, shiny, happy photo ops to climb up in the polls then deliberately spark another election.  What the fuck happened to “Stay the course,” Stevo?  Oh yeah, caught with your dick hanging out happened.     Caught with it hanging out on your precious international stage happened. 

So, Cut-and-Run cowardly Steve, that proponent of transparency, wants to shut down government while we are still reeling from a recession.  Does he think we will all just forget about the torture allegations until March?  No, this was what he considered his Titanic, remember?

But opposition members of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan have asked to hold special meetings before the session resumes. Among other high-profile witnesses, they want Defence Minister Peter MacKay and his predecessor, Gordon O'Connor, to return for more interrogation about what they knew of the torture allegations. The committee could not sit during prorogation.

With memos like this coming out -

"The Canadian provost marshal in Kandahar has told ISAF that he would be pleased to provide the information but that he has received explicit instructions from National Defence Headquarters ... not to do so," Mr. Colvin's memo says.  
   (h/t Impolitical )

- Steve will not want MacKay or O’Connor going before the committee.

There is no justification for Harper to prorogue Parliament.  To do so does not serve the country.  It serves only him and his flunkeys.  It costs all of us as we pay our MPs regradless of whether they sit or not.  It costs us since any Bills now on the table are dead and the whole expensive process has to be repeated.

The most critical piece of legislation before the Senate is the bill that enriches the employment insurance program.

Sure.  Because Harper really, really cares about ordinary Canadians, right?

It also costs us because these undemocratic tactics become easier and easier to pull off each time since the commonplace becomes more acceptable.  That costs us the integrity of our democratic system.

Maybe Harper will be able to pull this off again.  But if we sit back without raising our voices, without writing letters and e-mails, then we might just as well buy him a lovely dictator’s uniform for Christmas and be prepared to thank him as we kiss his boots.