I'm sorry, but Heather Mallick gives a version of events inaccurate enough so that the unfamiliar cannot understand the historic events that just transpired in Canada.
"She is Michaëlle Jean, a Haitian-born Quebecois woman of great intelligence and style, a former journalist who speaks five languages, a diplomatic star overseas, in other words, an intellectual who personifies everything that enrages Harper."
This is simply incorrect both with respect to fact and emphasis.
First, while the unpleasant Harper has spoken contemptuously of the arts community receiving grants, we have no evidence that intellectuals in general “enrage” him. None.
Indeed, he is a highly intelligent man - trained in classical economics and having made remarkable progress in learning French while on the job - albeit one seriously lacking in emotional intelligence.
As for Michaelle Jean, the not widely-known truth is that while beautiful and intelligent, she is a highly fragile personality.
She keeps away from the press, but there are enough stories since her appointment as Governor General by the previous (Liberal) Prime Minister Martin to confirm the idea she has serious emotional and/or mental problems. A few reports in the press suggested Mr. Martin understood this not long after the appointment.
Despite avoiding the press, her fragility shows through clearly in some pictures of her lovely face.
It was reported in major newspapers in an almost footnote story a while ago that when Mr. Harper first took office, people filling him in on less-known problems in the capital advised that the Governor General was a possible road-side bomb waiting to go off.
In this, she reminds me very much of the late Princess Diana, a glowing woman who charmed mass audiences but, by many reports, blew gaskets behind the scenes.
Now, I like what I see of the Governor General, and I don't say these things to attack her character, but they are essential to understanding her historic, and wrong-headed, decision. Intelligence and beauty played no role in this, and I think it fair to say Ms. Mallick emphasizes them to set up her false dichotomy about Harper and intellectuals.
Michaëlle Jean’s decision about proroguing Parliament (a temporary adjournment and wiping clean of the order paper for upcoming business such as the imminent confidence vote) was simply wrong on the facts. Of course, we must accept it, just as we accept any decision of the Supreme Court in criminal or civil matters, but we are, as members of a free society, free to analyze and even criticize it.
She was totally within her rights to do what she did because there are no written rules for this crucial aspect of her job, but it was a mistake, going against the rights and responsibilities of the members of Parliament as a whole, setting a bad precedent, and effectively suppressing the will of a large majority of Parliament - the three parties of the coalition opposing Harper representing 63% of the popular vote in the recent election.
She has allowed a prime minister facing an imminent vote of non-confidence to escape, much like dismissing school for seven weeks to benefit a student who was about to fail an exam. The precedent set is a poor one.
Most of the time, the Governor General, just as the Queen, serves a ceremonial role, representing Canada as head of state abroad, at ceremonies, and in awarding honors, allowing for a decent separation from the head of government, a politician. But on the rare occasions in which the parties in Parliament cannot agree as to where the rules and traditions take them, she is there to make a binding decision.
Of course, out of respect for democracy, her decision is to be based on the Constitution, parliamentary rules and traditions, and precedent, and not on personal preferences with regard to parties or personalities.
And I don’t think her decision shows such bias, but it did show, I believe, another bias, and that is the preference of this frail personality to avoid public controversy and the great tensions of making a correct but difficult decision.
After some inappropriate activities by Mr. Harper, immediately preceding the Governor General’s decision, the stage was set for the right decision to require extra courage and stamina.
Harper’s nasty little party spent days hurling accusations of everything right up to treason against three honorable men following their consciences and going about a perfectly legal operation of parliamentary government.
Indeed, it was only the divisive and extreme aspects of Harper’s character – exhibited in his government’s bizarre recent economic statement, only the latest of many bizarre and antagonistic behaviors in a few years - that drove three disparate leaders from three parties to come to the difficult decision that they must join in a formal coalition to topple the government.
Harper went out of his way to promote misunderstanding around the coalition, claiming voters had just selected him and that this effort amounted to overturning democracy. Of course, in our Westminster system of democracy the only voters who actually selected Harper were the tiny number of his own constituency. And he has served as prime minister for two and a half years solely by virtue of periodic support of other parties in the House, the very parties he was now viciously attacking.
Harper and some of his worst hacks threw every unfair accusation they could think of, fanning hatreds and prejudices, including prejudices towards Quebec, the home base of one of the three parties. They ran quickly produced ads, the party being well financed by Alberta oil. They arranged public demonstrations, including one in front of the Governor General’s residence, surely entirely inappropriate for trying to influence a decision whose nature is perhaps best paralleled by a decision of the Supreme Court. Popular opinion simply has nothing to do with it.
We are left, after the Governor General’s decision, with a widely disliked government, led by an almost psychopathic and certainly devious personality. The chief political fact keeping his minority in power is that the progressive opposition is divided into four different parties. A country that is overwhelmingly progressive is stuck with a neo-con Prime Minister who listens to no one and stoops to any cheap stunt he thinks will be to his advantage.
Yes, the opposition can return near the end of January and defeat his government on its budget, but those many weeks will see unparalleled efforts by the government to demonize the opposition and manipulate public opinion, and the opposition, not nearly so well financed, will come under unusual pressure to break up. And already Harper’s government has toyed with the idea of bribing key parties in the opposition with posts or appointments.
I’m sure the budget will be fairly reasonable too, making defeating it all the harder. But a budget per se – there hasn’t been one yet - has not been the cause of this historic non-confidence effort. Harper’s school-yard bully personality is, and we appear stuck with it for a while.
